ATHENS – Greece’s Health Ministry said the resurgence of COVID-19 has brought active infection cases to some 5,100 around the capital, worrying the New Democracy government’s scientific and medical advisory committee.

The word came from pediatric infectious diseases doctor Vana Papaevangelou, said Kathimerini, the data coming during a regular live briefing on the state of the pandemic that led the government to bring a third, tighter lockdown.

The average rate of new infections was 11 per 100,000 population in the week leading up to Feb. 13, and the active infections nationwide are estimated at around 10,000, far higher if those without symptoms are added.

Hospital admissions rates have reached 200 per day on a national level and the number of people on ventilators in public hospital Intensive Care Units (ICUs) rose by 67 percent, with 83 percent of beds occupied.

The average positivity of diagnostic tests rose to 2.8 percent, she said, while the infection rate of those aged 20-60 has also risen, a vaccination program only now beginning for those 75-79 and for those in the 60-64 range.

Another committee member and infectious disease specialist, Gkikas Magiorkinis, said at the same briefing that, according to preliminary data, additional restrictive measures in Attica have begun to show results, but this will become clearer by the end of February.

He said that a mild rise was expected in ICU admissions in the next two weeks. In Thessaloniki, infections are showing a stabilizing trend, and hospitalization rates are not expected to rise abruptly for now.