The "alarm" for the criticality of the situation, in relation to the coronavirus, was sounded by the doctor and researcher, and Chief of the Human Retrovirus Section of the National Cancer Institute George Pavlakis, talking about a "risk" that Greek society is taking, proceeding to the lifting of restrictive measures.

The number of new coronavirus diagnoses has dropped slightly nationally, by 8%, health committee member and doctor Gkikas Magiorkinis said during a regular briefing on Thursday.

The advent and rapid prevalence of the Omicron strain demonstrates the potential of SARS-CoV-2 to evolve its ability to transmit and cause disease. What is particularly surprising, however, is that the origin of the Omicron strain does not appear to have originated from any of the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variants such as the Alpha, Beta, Gamma or Delta strains.