Greece orders private doctors to join COVID-19 battle

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s health minister is requisitioning the services of private sector doctors from certain specialties in the wider Athens region to help fight a renewed surge in coronavirus infections that is straining hospitals to their limits. Vassilis Kikilias said Monday that despite repeated appeals to private doctors to volunteer to help in the public sector, very few came forward. Therefore, he said, he was ordering specialists in pathology, pneumonology and general medicine to help. Greece has been experiencing a renewed surge of COVID-19 despite lockdown-related measures being in force since early November, with dozens of daily deaths and increasing numbers of patients hospitalized in intensive care units.