Gov’t spokesperson Petsas urges public not to relax Covid protections over Christmas
File photo: Στολισμένη για τα Χριστούγεννα και την Πρωτοχρονιά η Πλατεία Συντάγματος. ANA – MPA/ANA-MPA/ NICOLAS KOMINIS
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
Government spokesperson Stelios Petsas on Monday appealed to citizens throughout the country to not show complacency and continue abiding by the protection measures during the holidays.
“Gatherings indoors can become celebrations for the virus rather than us. There is no room for experimentation. We have to be with the same people, at most with one other family, during the holidays,” the government spokesperson noted in a press briefing.
“As of tonight, a new programme of 12,000 random sample tests throughout the country will go into effect,” Petsas said.
Regarding the vaccination strategy, the government spokesperson analysed all the individual stages and repeated that, as of Monday evening, there will be regular briefings about the vaccine from the President of the National Vaccination Committee, Maria Theodoridou, and the Secretary of Primary Health Care, Marios Themistocleous.
“The European Medicines Agency is expected to meet today to approve the first Pfizer novel coronavirus vaccine. Each country will receive its vaccines based on its population and there will be absolutely no variation in the time of receipt.
The first vaccines will arrive in our country on December 26 and from the next day we will be able to start the first vaccinations in reference hospitals,” Petsas said.
On the epidemiological situation in many European countries, he said that it remains difficult. “Governments are concerned about the holidays and are taking additional restrictive measures. Even more worrying on a European level is the new mutated strain of the virus found in parts of the United Kingdom and other countries. A strict lockdown has already been imposed in London, and a meeting of the European Crisis Mechanism has already been scheduled at an EU level for European coordination,” he said.
Source: ANA – MPA