The possibility for new measures before the New Year by K. Mitsotakis is open

The Prime Minister left a “window” for new immediate measures, in the dialogue he had with the President of the Republic, during their established meeting.

“We are waiting for the experts’ suggestions and then announcements will be made by the Ministry of Health. We are in a period where the O mutation tends to become prevalent in our country, as we expected. We do not yet have sufficient scientific data. The first data show that the O’s morbidity does not appear to be as severe as Delta’s morbidity, but we are currently emerging from the fourth wave of the pandemic. “the experts. The time will be determined by them”, stressed Mr. Mitsotakis. “The initial assessment was that the measures would need to be taken after the New Year, but we are waiting for their own suggestions, so as to slow down – as far as possible – the spread of O so that we can enable the Health system to take “We are in a phase of de-escalation in terms of hospital admissions and a gradual reduction in intensive care units. This is encouraging and gives us some small time to prepare our defenses against the O mutation,” he said.

The entire dialogue between K. Mitsotakis and K. Sakellaropoulou is as follows:

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all, Madam President, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the family of the former President of the Republic, Karolos Papoulias, a man whom I had the pleasure and honor to meet in person. I remember he always welcomed me to this office with a smile. He always had his doors open, even though I was just an MP when I first met him in this office. A man who identified his personal and political path with important moments in modern Greek history. He served the highest state office with dignity, always emphasizing the unity of the Greek people, and of course raising the flag of truth against the waves of populism, as the second presidential term coincided with a very difficult period for our country and it is very important a legacy that Karolos Papoulias leaves behind to all of us younger ones. I also wanted to inform you about developments on the pandemic front. We are waiting for the suggestions of the experts and then announcements will be made by the Ministry of Health. We are in a period where the O mutation tends to become prevalent in our country, as we expected. We do not yet have sufficient scientific data. Early indications are that O’s morbidity does not appear to be as severe as Delta’s morbidity. But we are currently coming out of the fourth wave of the pandemic. We must be careful and take those measures that are necessary and that will be suggested to us by the experts. The time will be determined by them. The initial estimate was that the measures would need to be taken after the New Year, but we are waiting for their own suggestions, so as to slow down – as much as possible – the spread of O in order to enable the Health system to take some breaths. We are in a phase of de-escalation in terms of hospital admissions and a gradual reduction in intensive care units. This is encouraging and gives us some small time to prepare our defenses against the O mutation.

What we do know is that vaccines for O are also necessary. Especially the third dose is absolutely necessary, especially for our older fellow citizens. I want to thank all our fellow citizens who rushed and responded to the recommendations of the experts and made the third installment. There are very few of our fellow citizens over 60 who have not been vaccinated or have not been vaccinated with the third dose, I encourage them to do so, it is a very important additional line of defense against the O mutation. Of course, I am still trying to convince them our fellow citizens, who are still thinking about the first dose of vaccination to take this step. Let me remind you that the mandatory vaccination of people over 60 will become active on January 16 next year and we will hope until then, as many of our fellow citizens as possible to take the step and use this gift of science, which has been fully proven effective and above all completely safe.

With these few thoughts I wish you a good year again, 2022 to be less turbulent than 2021 and sooner rather than later, to return to normal, without turmoil, which, unfortunately as has been seen in recent years, are much more common than we might have expected. Again I wish you and your family all the best and happy new year.

Katerina Sakellaropoulou: Thank you, Mr President. Karolos Papoulias has been a very important personality, a fighter since his youth and I think that the points that really need to stand are his career as a long-term Foreign Minister, where he contributed a lot for the country to play the role of pillar stability in the region, that part of external relations is very important for its action at that time. And of course, both of his terms, but as you are right, the second, where he worked so hard for unity and social cohesion and defended them to the end even at a time when both he and the institution were wronged. I think we owe him a lot and we should remember him with gratitude and honor. For the pandemic – you will decide on the measures – I again at every opportunity call on all our fellow citizens to be vaccinated. What we say from the first moment, the gift, the only way to our freedom. I am glad to see that Greek society has kept, not to be too disappointed, there have been more reactions and denial elsewhere. Greek society has supported vaccination to a large extent from the beginning. Unfortunately, there is also this whole piece of hesitant, negative or as it is otherwise called. I hope that little by little everyone sees the difficulty and the wrong path of the refusal of vaccination and is convinced to vaccinate all our fellow citizens, because really only this way we will be better for the time to come. And I wish everyone, we will say it again, of course, that next year will be better, at least less turbulent than this year – I wish.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Allow me a showcase only for the issue of vaccination. Exactly last year at such a time we were the first to make the first dose of the vaccine. Since then, more than 16 million vaccines have been given in our country. Operation “Freedom” despite the difficulties was and is an extremely successful operation. The fact that today we have reached 80% of our fellow citizens who are personally vaccinated I can not consider it a bad result. But we need even more vaccinations, because unfortunately our initial estimates that we could build a wall of immunity with a vaccination of 70% of the adult population, these were the initial estimates of experts, fell out of it and 80% of adults is not enough for this and we need to extend vaccination to children. I would like to thank the parents who have already rushed and made an appointment and are responding for the first dose to the sensitive ages from 5 to 11. On January 3, the mass receipts of vaccines for these ages will start again, as in all of Europe. whenever we have the opportunity to reopen the platform and offer many more vaccines to children. It is important for the schools to reopen on January 10, it is very important for the Greek society, I consider the model of mass tests that Greece was the first to apply very successful. Citizens take the responsibility of their health into their own hands and the self test is a very important tool and we will of course need it even more when our children return to school. I would like as many children as possible to be already vaccinated when this happens.

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