Mitsotakis won’t force health personnel to be vaccinated – right now

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will not force health personnel to be vaccinated against the coronavirus right now, fearing tensions in hospitals.

But he said he would be open to discussing the idea from September, when he hopes the acute phase of the pandemic will be over.

Asked, in an interview to TV channel Star, if he would like to do as the Italian government did and make vaccination for health personnel mandatory, or make them face sanctions, Mitsotakis said that “we must discuss [the issue] very seriously, at a neutral moment, I think, when there is not so much pressure on the helath system…at present, I do not want to create tension inside hospitals, but I must say that, from September, we must revisit the issue from a different perspective.”

A sizeable percentage of health personnel have expressed reluctance to being vaccinated, nurses and other auxiliary personnel more so than doctors. Representatives of health personnel unions have said that health personnel are revising their initial negative opinions and are asking for one more chance to take the jabs.