Coming week deemed crucial by experts for course of lockdown

This week is considered particularly critical by the Health Ministry's committee of experts, who are anxiously awaiting encouraging signals that would relieve some of the pressure on the country's National Health System and pave the way for a gradual de-escalation of restrictive measures.

In any case, experts insist that the factors that will determine a return to partial normalcy will be the endurance of the health system, the public's compliance with protective measures, the possibility of mass testing and the prospect of the vaccine.

"At the moment, the curve of the epidemic seems to have flattened. The Rt (virus reproduction rate) is at 1, and the positive rate of laboratory tests is close to 10-12%," said Charalambos Gogos, an infectious disease pathologist, professor of pathology at the Medical Department of the University of Patra and member of the Committee of...