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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis chaired a broad meeting this morning on the National Vaccination Plan against Coronavirus.
“According to the latest information we have from the European Medicines Agency, the approval of the first vaccine is expected, it will be that of Pfizer on December 22. Distributions in Europe will begin shortly after. “We estimate that the first batches of the vaccine will be in our country on December 26 and from next, as of December 27, we will be able to have the first vaccines in five reference hospitals in Athens and immediately after in Thessaloniki,” said the Prime Minister.
He noted that based on the recommendations of the National Vaccination Committee, there will be a strict prioritization of vaccination. It will be preceded by employees of the National Health System and guests in nursing homes. And citizens over 65 will follow immediately after.
Who will be the first two Greek citizens to be vaccinated?
Mr. Mitsotakis stated that a total of about 2.4 million of our fellow citizens are estimated to be in this age group. And he announced that the first citizens to be vaccinated in our country will be a nurse and an elderly fellow citizen.
The Prime Minister admitted that the central negotiation, which took place in Brussels, on the procedures for the delivery of the vaccine, created a small gap in relation to the initial expectations that had been cultivated. He reiterated that these negotiations are carried out centrally by the European Commission, each country receives its vaccines in proportion to its population and there is absolutely no differentiation with this policy. He stressed that the vaccines arrive in all European countries more or less on the same day, each batch will arrive on the same day, and then obviously the responsibility shifts to the countries so that they can follow the national vaccination strategy as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. as possible.
Mr. Mitsotakis highlighted in particular how important the vaccination process is for the elderly, who, unfortunately, represent 85% of our peers who have lost their lives since the start of the pandemic, more than 60% of those who were intubated .
“So their armor is valuable not only to them, but it is also the one that will finally bring us relief for the health structures and for their people, who today are lifting a huge burden,” said the prime minister, adding: And, for Of course, we must know that only when we reach about 70% of the vaccination of the entire Greek population will we be able to speak with confidence that we have left the pandemic behind ”.
The Prime Minister assured that the conditions for safe transport, adequate storage space, forms of rapid transfer of the vaccine to 1,018 vaccination centers in all corners of the country have already been ensured and stressed that everyone will help in this effort: doctors, nurses, pharmacists, armed forces. Civil Protection, Police.
The meeting took place at the Civil Protection Operations Center, where from now on a team from the Ministries of Health, Digital Policy and Citizen Protection will operate, which will undertake the complex task of the vaccination process.
“We are all a fist together, we are a team to be able to launch this process. “The country had never implemented a similar plan before, the last large vaccination campaigns were carried out with completely different data after World War II,” said Mr. Mitsotakis.
He also said that the political and state leadership will be the first to be vaccinated to show their confidence in science.
“Another Christmas will come, other new years will come”
He warned, however, that the pandemic would obviously not end with the start of the vaccination process.
“Prevention and shielding are not separate phases, they are two parallel processes and restrictive measures can only be lifted when the downward trend of the pandemic is consolidated and we need to keep our social contacts limited for a long time, society will tend to with a one hand in the vaccine and with the other the mask will continue to be lifted from the face, “said the prime minister and before the holidays he repeated once again his call to everyone to be careful, to limit their contacts to the absolute minimum.
“We will have a different Christmas, this time, another Christmas will come, another New Years will come, which we can celebrate as we have always celebrated. This Christmas and this New Year they will and should be different and I am absolutely sure that our fellow citizens will respond with a sense of responsibility and do the right thing. “Right for themselves, right for the country,” Mitsotakis said.
He noted that when the vaccination is completed, the epilogue of this great battle against the pandemic and the prelude to a new era of security and prosperity will be drawn up, which will bring more freedom.
“The vaccine not only frees us from the yoke of the threat to health, but it is also a passport to recover our small and great freedoms, which have experienced temporary but necessary restrictions,” he concluded.
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