The spokesperson for the Ministry of Health on the new coronavirus, professor Sotiris Tsiodras, made the following statement:
"The transmission of the novel coronavirus is spreading globally. The whole of Europe is in an epidemic phase of multiple imports, with subsequent community transmission.
Today, worldwide, we have more than 106,000 cases in more than 100 countries.
At this stage, our measures focus on protecting vulnerable groups of the population from the potential spread of the disease.
Further preventive special measures are announced, which concern actions to limit the possibility of the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in our homeland and have as their main objective the protection of vulnerable groups of the population.
These measures are as follows:
• Suspension of the operation of the KAPI throughout the country for 4 weeks.
• Suspension of any conference event in the territory for the next 4 weeks.
• Suspension of all school trips within the country for 2 weeks.
• Holding all sporting events behind closed doors for the next 2 weeks.
The measures will take effect tomorrow, Monday, March 9, 2020, and will be re-evaluated before their expiration.
Regarding educational units of each level, the preventive suspension of operations continues, which is applied on a case-by-case basis to specific units, depending on the findings resulting from contact tracing carried out by the National Public Health Organization.
Finally, 7 new cases of the disease are announced, involving Greek citizens.
6 of the 7 are epidemiologically linked to previous confirmed cases, while contact tracing is continuing for one.
Thank you".