Mitsotakis urges citizens to volunteer for random testing
Greek Premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday called on citizens to take part in the random testing scheme set up to establish a better understanding of the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2.
“Rapid tests allow us to monitor the rate of positivity [for SARS-CoV-2] in our fellow citizens that are asymptomatic. This information is extremely important in order to quickly locate possible local epidemics, so that we can intervene rapidly and locally to contain them,” he said during his visit to the Peristeri Multidisciplinary Health Centre.
The centre is one of 386 testing sites participating in the plan to perform 12,000 rapid tests for novel coronavirus a day, through the testing.gov.gr platform, with a random selection of volunteers.
"We have said many times that the vaccine is the start of the end of the pandemic. Until, however, until a significant proportion of the Greek population is vaccinated, we must continue to be extremely careful so that we are not faced with a third wave of the pandemic. And in order to do this, we need as much information as possible on a local level,” he added.
The tests are carried out free of charge and the results are revealed within 10 minutes.
The prime minister was given a tour of the health centre, which in addition to rapid tests also offers PCR tests for patients that have symptoms of Covid-19 or have come into contact with a known case.
