Covid pushes Attica area ICU beds to near capacity

The availability of intensive care beds (ICUs) is under pressure at hospitals across Attica, Greece's most populous region, a top health official has warned.

Speaking on Skai radio on Wednesday, the president of the Athens and Piraeus hospital doctors' association (EINAP), Matina Pagoni, said that 166 of the 230 ICU beds in Attica are being used to treat Covid-19 positive patients, a 72 percent occupancy rate.

Pagoni said that the remaining ICU beds are likely to be needed in the coming days as an estimated 10 percent of the total 1,430 patients in Attiica's coronavirus-designated clinics will need to be intubated.

Attica will enter a hard lockdown on Thursday, which will last until the end of February, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Tuesday citing an increase in hospital admissions of coronavirus patients that is putting a strain...