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| - Greece's coronavirus death toll reached 500 on Saturday, the state health agency said, with authorities concerned about the spread of infections in northern rural areas. "I must ask that we be very careful," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Saturday during a visit to the island of Samothrace. The civil protection agency this week put the densely populated northern region of Kozani, home to some 150,000 people, under lockdown until October 29. The order shuts most businesses, including restaurants, cinemas, courts, retail shops, hair salons and gymnasiums, but not schools. Deputy minister for civil protection Nikos Hardalias travelled to the area on Saturday, and warned that similar restrictions may have to be imposed in the northwestern region of Ioannina. Nearly 300 new cases have surfaced in October in the Kozani area, some 475 kilometres (295 miles) north of Athens, according to health officials. "Epidemiological data shows major pressure in the area," he told officials in the city of Ioannina. Over 100 infections were detected in Kozani this week. The Ioannina region also had over 100, according to the state health agency. Nearly 25,000 infections have been announced in Greece since February, of which 482 on Sunday. Nearly half the daily cases are in the greater Athens area, but authorities have resisted imposing movement restrictions in the capital. jph/cdw
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