Greek health body publishes ‘inaccurate’ virus data

ATHENS

Greece’s national health organization EODY kept and published “inaccurate” coronavirus data, an academician said.

“The poorest and those who are not motivated to take the test were not recorded. The wrong data leads us to a wrong assessment of the pandemic and that is why the tests must be prescribed, ” Athina Linou, professor of Epidemiology at the Medical School of the University of Athens, said in an interview with local broadcaster Kontra News.

Linou stressed that the EODY data is inaccurate with regards to cases and there is no transparency in the publication of these data.

“What concerns me is that the records health authorities use in order to issue recommendations have to be complete and objective,” she said.

Responding to media reports that there are two systems of registering virus-related data, Stelios Petsas, the government spokesman said: “the National Registry for Covid-19 can always be consulted by scientists, and claims about parallel systems of registration belong to some people's imagination.”

According to media reports, the second system of registration was initiated by the National Public Health Organization (EODY) and led to numbers of infections not reflecting on the situation at hospitals.

Meanwhile, Sotiria Papageorgakopoulou, the head of the Athens Prosecutor's Office, has ordered a preliminary investigation into media reports.

Daily recorded cases still remain above 2,000 in Greece, with 2,186 infections registered on Wednesday. The total number of cases in the country reached 109,655.

At least 89 more people died of the virus over the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s death toll to 2,606 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

The number of intubated patients rose to 613, according to health authorities.