ATHENS – As the New Democracy government said it’s favoring an economic recovery and won’t impose any more lockdowns – and is easing health restrictions – there were 3,937 cases recorded in one day and a record 54 fatalities.

That happened in a 24-hour period up to 3 p.m. on Oct. 25 after warnings from the health panel advising Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has moved away from any thought of mandatory vaccinations, that the crisis will get worse.

The new cases were identified from 76,793 tests, a positivity rate of 5.13% more than five times higher than the indicator of 1.0 that would show the pandemic is being put under control, with anti-vaxxers continuing to spread it.

There are also 354 patients on ventilators in public health hospitals, said the National National Organization for Public Health (EODY,) 314 of them (88.7 percent) unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, while the other 40 (11.3%) are fully vaccinated, although companies making the vaccines said that almost would never happen at that rate.

Attica, Greece’s most populous region, recorded the highest number of new cases with 710, with 623 in the northern port city of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest and a symbol of defiance against health restrictions.

The new reported cases bring the total tally of new cases in Greece since the start of the pandemic to 720,295, with 15,682 deaths over the same period.