Greece has enough shots for booster vaccines, PM says

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday said that, thanks to the European Union, Greece has enough vaccines against Covid-19 to cover the possibility of a booster shot being required in the winter.

Brussels, he said during a meeting in his office in Athens with European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides, “took the politically difficult decision to purchase vaccines as the European Union and to distribute them to member-states solely on the basis of population size, without any distinctions between countries, poor or rich, big or small.” It was, he said, “a significant success of European policy.”

“More importantly, we now have enough vaccines so see us through the winter, into next year, in the increasingly likely case that a booster shot will be needed by the entire population,” he added.

Kyriakides also upbeat about progress with vaccinations, but described the current phase of the pandemic as “fragile.” 

“What we are seeing in all member-states right now is a downward course in the number of coronavirus cases and, fortunately, in hospitalization, but we are also keeping a very close watch on the evolution of the variants, and especially the Delta variant, which, as you know, is causing problems in the United Kingdom right now,” Kyriakides said.

The officials also discussed greater integration of European health sectors, with Kyriakides noting that the pandemic highlighted the need for “structural changes.”

Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias also attended the meeting.