Mitsotakis meeting with representatives of retail and catering – Alarm for pandemic indicators

By Dimitris Gatsios

With the new measures to curb the pandemic virus in the community coming into force on Saturday morning and the “imprint” on the coronavirus indicators causing great concern to government and scientists, the Maximos Palace is entering an extremely difficult, according to phenomena, week in terms of Covid-19 indices.

In fact, at a time when those who still choose not to be vaccinated are now with rapid a rapid test in hand for a number of basic social and economic activities, the success of interventions and consequently whether more drastic decisions will be required depend directly on the faithful implementation of the whole framework. And this is the message that the Prime Minister is expected to send in today’s morning meeting with representatives of retail and catering.

A meeting that will focus on the emphasis on audits at a critical time milestone. That is, a few weeks before the market officially enters the festive season, with the possibility of taking further action being an exorcised scenario, given the impact it will have on the real economy.

Full implementation of the measures

In the government staff, the prevailing logic is always related to the position expressed in all tones “the economy and society are not going to close again”. At the same time, the issue of extending the mandatory vaccination to areas such as catering, despite discussions among scientists, seems to be off the agenda, with the government appearing categorically (at least for now) in such a scenario. “Obligation – for reasons we have explained many times – is not one of the options at the moment. Nowhere in the world is there an obligation, except in very specific sectors, such as health for obvious reasons. placed opposite discovering the option of… optional obligation.

In no country is there a private sector obligation. Vaccination rates in the places we chat from time to time are such that one can not say that with the obligatory things would change a lot. “Especially for the focus, we must not forget that in addition to the recommendation for vaccination, there is a very strict framework for non-vaccinated workers that provides for continuous laboratory testing with rapid and molecular tests,” said (real fm) the government spokesman. Giannis Oikonomou: Regarding the request of the representatives of the restaurant to enter the areas of health interest and unvaccinated citizens with rapid test, this is not discussed, in any case, by the government, as the framework is tightened, in order to put obstacles in its development. pandemic virus.

With Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during the last cabinet meeting, talking about “significant outbreak of cases, which is primarily an exacerbation of cases among the unvaccinated”, but also “great pressure on the National Health System in Northern Greece”, the forecasting models show as the worst-case scenario that may come to the fore in this increase of the number of patients in the Intensive Care Units, which may reach 600 by the end of November.

This is the first extremely worrying scenario for government and experts. The second is related to the possibility that the country will reach even 10,000 infections on a daily basis, in case the vaccinations do not go well and the measures that have been announced are not implemented. And these are, at the present time, the two big bets for the government, as, especially on the front of the… stings, there is a large percentage of unvaccinated (30% of adults, according to the data) that can potentially cause suffocation in hospitals of the country.

“The increasing trend of cases and hospitalizations in combination with the weather conditions has led to adjustments of the measures with restrictions, which concern the vaccinated. Because they are much more at risk, but also because the activities of our fellow citizens who have been vaccinated can not be limited. “, is the central message that is transmitted. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear, in addition to the pressure that those who have not been vaccinated will face in their daily lives, that the tightening of penalties and the new persuasion operation for “Eleftheria” will largely determine the success of this whole framework. the next wave of interventions.

The government, however, welcomes the fact that, after the announcement of the new interventions, there is a tripling of the new appointments in the vaccination centers of the country. So, if the first big issue is the acceleration of vaccinations with the third dose, but also the operation of “persuasion” to the unvaccinated (it is estimated that almost 15% of citizens who have not been vaccinated, can finally take the step) second is related to the effectiveness of the controls. It is characteristic that on Saturday a total of 99,258 inspections were carried out and 601 cases of violation of the epidemiological alarm measures were found. A total of 228,150 euros in fines and suspension were imposed on 25 companies.