ATHENS – More front-line health care workers battling COVID-19 are contracting the disease, worrying authorities who depend on them as the pandemic is raging on and in a second wave.

The National Organization for Public Health said there were 407 cases on Oct. 7, the numbers often over 400, and four years. That brought the totals to 20,974 cases and 424 deaths, with 198 of the infections in Attica around the capital.

The anxiety is over localized clusters of cases, especially among health workers as the union representing health workers, POEDIN, said 300 have been struck since the beginning of August alone, when the resurgence began.

POEDIN President Michalis Giannakos said that 23 health workers from hospitals in Ioannina, Agrinio and Achaia tested positive for COVID-19, said Kathimerini in a report.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) revised recommendations that should be enforced at hospitals and retirement homes, adding that besides keeping a safe distance and using masks that there should be more diagnostic tests for staff, patients or residents too.