Greece on Friday extended the full lockdown imposed on metropolitan Athens earlier this week to more regions of the country in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections, the deputy civil protection minister said. Effective on Saturday the region of Achaia in the northwest of the Peloponnese peninsula as well as Euboea, Greece’s second-largest island after Crete, will be in lockdown until Feb. 22 at least, authorities said. This means schools, hair salons and non-essential retail shops will close. “The epidemiological picture countrywide shows a steady deterioration,” Vana Papaevangelou, a member of the committee of infectious disease experts advising the government, told a news briefing. She said the occupancy rate at COVID-19 intensive care units in Athens hospitals had risen to 83%. On Tuesday the government announced a full lockdown in metropolitan Athens to curb a resurgence in coronavirus cases and ease pressure on badly stretched health services. “People should be doubly careful as there are COVID-19 variants in the community,” Papaevangelou said. Greece, which has fared relatively better than others in Europe during the pandemic, was forced to impose a partial lockdown in November after infections began climbing, threatening to overwhelm a health system weakened by a decade-long financial crisis.