No more lockdowns for Greece, as new COVID-19 cases continue to hover over 6,000

Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis talked about a number of issues, including the pandemic in an interview with Mega TV. Photo: AMNA

4 November 2021 9:15am

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Greece confirmed another 6,150 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours and 49 deaths, bringing the country’s death tally to 16,109 people.

Despite the high figures, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Mega TV that there would be no more lockdowns

“I’m firm on this, simply because right now three in four people have done the right thing, and it would be unfair to impose restrictions at a great cost, in order to manage a problem related to a minority – no European country follows this tactic,” he said.

As for criticism from the main opposition that churches are exempted from requiring COVID tests to enter, he said that the government had shut them down in 2020 and Greek Orthodox Easter services had been suspended.

Asked about vaccine mandates, Mr Mitsotakis said that such measures had reached their end. He was responding to a question on whether he would oblige members of the security forces to get vaccinated. “No other country has expanded obligatory vaccinations because, from a point on, we hit a wall of resistance,” the premier said.

Mitsotakis said the rise in prices was a global phenomenon and that inflation was expected to drop as of the start of 2022. The government, he noted, will spend a total of over 500 million euros to help restrain electricity prices. Without this, the bills would have increased tenfold, he added.

As of 1 January, 2022, the minimum wage will be raised by 2 per cent, and there will be more increases within 2022, after real numbers and business resilience are taken into account.

International conferences like the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) offer the only opportunity for all countries to get together and assume commitments to reducing greenhouse emissions, Mr Mitsotakis said. He underlined that Greece’s green transition “will not be shouldered by the Greek people,” and that more and better jobs will be shortly created in western Macedonia, where lignite production is being phased out.