Greece issues vaccination certificates as the country records another 880 new cases

A total of 880 new cases of the coronavirus were diagnosed in Greece on Monday, as another 30,000 vaccinations were administered in the past 24 hours.

The Greek capital of Athens, and the region of Attica, continues to be a hotspot as nearly half of the new cases were identified there. Thessaloniki on the other hand recorded 85 new cases. Tragically another 24 people lost their lives due to the coronaviurs on Monday and 346 patients are intubated in hospitals across the country.

Over 55,000 vaccination certificates issued since Friday

More than 30,000 vaccinations were administered on Monday, whilst 725,000 have been carried out overall since the vaccine rollout began, according to the general secretary of the Ministry of Health, Marios Themistokleous.

He added that Greece is above the European Union average in terms of vaccination coverage and now ranks in fourth place, as far as vaccination rates are concerned. He added that the trend in favour of the vaccine continues to increase, as another 1.42 million appointments have been booked.

By Easter, Mr Themistokleous said he was confident that there will be a good “percentage of immunity, especially among people who are at higher risk from the coronavirus.”

Greece began to issue vaccination certificates on Friday, and since then 55,000 have been issued to those who have received both doses of a vaccine, according to Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Minister of Digital governance.

“If you have a certificate and you have been vaccinated, you do not need to do a border test,” Pierrakakis stated during an interview with SKAI TV on Monday.

The vaccine certification, comes in either a virtual or printed form, the day after the second dose of the shot is received.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country has recorded a total of 180,672 cases of Covid-19, including all those who have recovered, and the total number of deaths relating to the virus has now reached 6,321. The majority of those who have passed away (95.7%) were over the age of 70 or suffered from other health issues.