The coronavirus vaccination process in Greece has come under fire from opposition parties who accuse the government of prioritizing officials to receive the vaccine before most health care workers.
Following the outcry, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday instructed authorities to stop vaccinating officials, who would now have to wait for their turn along with the rest of the population.
Last week, the government published a list of 45 officials who would be included in the first group of those receiving the vaccine.
However, on Tuesday, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said the priority list will ultimately include 126 government officials, who will get the shot by the end of January.
This group, includes cabinet ministers, general secretaries, the heads of the health agencies, and the leaders of the Greek armed forces.
Political perks
Main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, who received the vaccine on Monday, blasted the government for offering, what he called political perks.
“The queues of ministers and senior ministry officials lining up to get coronavirus vaccines when there were not enough to go around for frontline medical staff were not symbolic gestures but political perks,” he said.
He noted that “the vaccinations of the President of the Republic and the political leaders were a symbolic gesture and a strong message to the citizens, which was agreed from the start.”
However, as he pointed out, “the lines of ministers and general secretaries for a selfie with the vaccine, at a time when there are not enough for even the doctors and nurses on the front line, are not a symbolic gesture.”
Officials before doctors for vaccination?
Dr. Panagiotis Papanikolaou, secretary of the Federation of Hospital Doctors’ Associations of Greece, criticized how at Sotiria hospital — which he said was supposed to be the country’s flagship hospital in battling the coronavirus — the scheduled vaccinations for dozens of health workers were postponed.
“An equal number of ministers got vaccinated in their place. SHAME,” Papanikolaou wrote on Twitter.
Greece received more than 90,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and more deliveries are expected every week.
So far, hundreds have received the shot and just one person has developed a minor allergic reaction.
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