Adults not vaccinated against COVID-19 in Greece will be prohibited from entering theaters, museums or gyms, but can still go to church to worship, following a new set of restrictions by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday.
Mitsotakis made the announcement during a televised address to the nation as Greece is targeting the unvaccinated amid a surge in coronavirus infections.
In a Twitter thread, the prime minister posted a series of tweets outlining the new restrictions. He said that, beginning on Monday, all unvaccinated adults in Greece would not be allowed to enter the aforementioned closed areas, even with a negative COVID test.
Worshippers attending church will be allowed to enter with a negative test and will not have to be vaccinated.
The Greek government’s new measures come as its latest attempt to force the unvaccinated to get the jab and boost the country’s vaccination rate, which currently sits at approximately 62 percent. An estimated 70 percent of Greece’s 11 million population will have been fully vaccinated before the end of the year.
Mitsotakis called the situation “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
“Greece is mourning unnecessary losses because it simply does not have the vaccination rates of other European countries,” he said.
Mitsotakis also announced that he would write to European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen suggesting the EU digital COVID certificate should be valid only if it includes a third dose six months after the last shot.
“In this way, we will avoid any crack in the wall of immunity that has already been built on our continent,” he said.
The prime minister also claimed that vaccination certificates of those over 60 in Greece will be valid for seven months after being issued, in an effort to encourage them to get a third dose.
Watch the full national address from Kyriakos Mitostakis (in Greek)
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