Opposition slams government’s handling of the pandemic

Leftist SYRIZA opposition on Monday criticized the conservative government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, while accusing it of downplaying the severity of the pandemic.

Speaking in Parliament, SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras said Greece has since August reported one of Europe’s highest pandemic death rates.

“We lose around 300 people [due to Covid-19] every week, that is roughly the population of a small village,” Tsipras told lawmakers.

“[The government] is nevertheless acting as if the coronavirus is gone. You have arbitrarily decided that the pandemic is over,” he said, while accusing the conservatives of encouraging a mood of complacency among the public.

Tsipras also accused the New Democracy administration of failing to ramp up public healthcare despite the health crisis, while criticizing the nationwide inoculation program for failing to create “a wall of immunity.”

There have been 693,886 infections and 15,375 coronavirus-related deaths reported in Greece since the pandemic began.

A total of 2,435 people are estimated to have died of Covid-19 since August 1.

The country has administered at least 12,393,460 doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far. Assuming every individual needs 2 doses, that’s enough to have inoculated about 57.8% of the country’s population.