Greece bans flights from Qatar after 12 passengers test positive to coronavirus

Nine Pakistani nationals, two Greek nationals from Australia and a Japanese relative of a Greek-Japanese family tested positive to the novel coronavirus, from the 91 passengers on the same Qatar Airlines flight from Doha.

Earlier, health authorities had announced that new confirmed coronavirus cases jumped to 19 since Monday, saying that of these 12 were related to one flight, which they had not named. 

As per current health safety protocols for travellers who arrive in Greece by air, all passengers were transported to hotels, where those who tested positive will remain for 14 days and those who tested negative will stay for 7 days. The people who tested negative will be re-tested in 7 days.

The safety measures have been introduced also on the recommendation of the Health Ministry's novel coronavirus spokesman, professor Sotiris Tsiodras.

Coronavirus cases climb to 19 on Tuesday, no deaths since Monday

Greece announced 19 new confirmed novel coronavirus cases since Monday, of which 12 concern travellers who arrived in the country by air, the National Public Health Organization (EODY) reported on Tuesday. 

EODY reported no new deaths from Covid-19 on Tuesday. The total number of fatalities still stand at 179 and the total number of coronavirus cases at 2,937. Of the latter total, 651 are linked to travel abroad and 1,695 are linked to already known cases in Greece; the rest are of undetermined source. 

The average age of all confirmed infected patients is 48 years and of all the deceased 76 years.

A total of 11 Greeks are currently in ICUs, with 72.7 pct of these being men. 

Greece has so far carried out 185,590 clinical tests for the disease, of which 4,825 tested positive to the novel coronavirus (including cases where a person was tested more than once).