Greece’s operation Freedom COVID-19 vaccination plan faces challenges

It’s dubbed Operation Freedom, the hope it will release the grip of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, but so many people are so wary about taking the shot that Greece’s New Democracy government is struggling to persuade them, ANA reports.

The plan is to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the population but another challenge is that the country initially will get only enough to inject 150,000 of the near 11 million people as the European Union is scrambling to approve and acquire more.

There are small but vocal anti-vaccination groups in Greece but the biggest obstacle, said health authorities, are people afraid of side effects while others are anxious whether it will work after being developed in world record time.

There are now several vaccines, first coming from the United States’ Pfizer, in conjunction with German’s BioNTech where a husband-and-wife team of Turkish heritage, first developed it.

But it requires being shipped at -72 degrees Celsius (-161.6 degrees Fahrenheit) at every step of the way with only about 90 seconds in between to keep it safe, and there is worry about hackers affecting delivery routes.

With the first batch due Dec. 26, it will be given the next day to front-line staff at Athens’ Sotiria Hospital, which specializes in pulmonary cases, and a bigger roll-out is hoped for January 2021, although that would coincide with a potential spike in cases if there are breaches of health measures during the holiday period.

There are 110,000 health workers across the country who will get most of the first batch, followed by those who are most susceptible, the elderly, those with underlying conditions, and nursing home patients at risk of perishing.

The government is launching the persuasion campaign even as doubters persist, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis leading the push. He spoke of “two cycles of defense.” “We will wear a mask as we get the vaccine, we will wear a mask after the vaccine,” he said.

A second wave of the pandemic surged across the country after many people didn’t wear masks or stay a safe social distance from each other and he admitted waiting too long to bring a second lockdown that is being partially eased for Christmas and the holidays.