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| - Greece on Wednesday extended its coronavirus lockdown to March 16 and called on additional private health resources as it clocked its highest rate of daily infections this year, health officials said. "We are at the toughest part of this pandemic," Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias told reporters as he warned that public health resources in the capital were under "unbearable pressure" for weeks. Just over 2,700 new daily infections were announced on Wednesday, a figure Kikilias called the highest this year. "At the rate of new hospitalisations, the health system is stretched beyond its limits in terms of infrastructure and staff," he said, adding that there was an "important rise" in the more contagious British virus variant. The minister said an army hospital and two private hospitals in Athens would take over additional non-Covid patients in order to free hundreds of beds in the capital's public hospitals for coronavirus duties. The civil protection agency also said restrictions would be tightened from Thursday to March 16 to keep people from crossing municipal boundaries for shopping and exercise. "The measures aim to reduce mobility...we stay at home, in our own neighbourhoods," civil protection deputy minister Nikos Hardalias told reporters. Forty deaths were announced on Wednesday, raising the death toll to nearly 6,600 in the country of 11 million. Nearly 200,000 people have been infected since the start of the pandemic, and over 430 are currently in intensive care. Over 950,000 vaccinations have been carried out so far. jph/pma
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