Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse Efstathia Kambissiouli, who works at the capital’s Evangelismos Hospital was to get the first COVID-19 vaccination shot in Greece Dec. 27, followed by a nursing home resident, Michalis Giovanidis.
Greece had been expecting millions of doses, then that was cut to 300,000 for a first batch and the only 9,750 as a starter, most slated to go to frontline healthcare workers as well as the most vulnerable.
That includes people in nursing homes as well as the elderly, those with underlying or multiple conditions or at risk, but some shots will also go to politicians who said they want to show a skeptical public it’s safe and works.
President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Parliament Speaker Constantine Tassoulas will be inoculated next and on Dec. 28 so will former premier Alexis Tsipras, head of the major opposition SYRIZA.
It wasn’t said if other lesser-ranking politicians would be able to cut the line and get shots ahead of people who are most likely to get or spread the Coronavirus and as polls showed less than half of Greeks want them anyway.
Greece’s vaccines come from the combo team of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and small German lab BioNTech and must be kept at temperatures of -162 degrees Fahrenheit during the shipment chain, with two shots required some several weeks apart.
The New Democracy government, in tandem with the inoculations starting, will also launch a campaign to persuade people not to be afraid of potential side effects that are far less severe than what COVID-19 brings those infected.
Read more at thenationalherald.com
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