The Greek government has announced that unvaccinated residents will be banned from all indoor public spaces in a supposed effort to stem the surge of new Chinese coronavirus cases.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis laid out the new restrictions on the unvaccinated this week in a televised address to the Greek people, saying that as of November 22nd, unvaccinated residents will be barred from all indoor public spaces, including cinemas and gyms.
Previously, unvaccinated people were able to gain access to such areas by presenting a negative test for the Wuhan virus, yet the new measures will scrap the validity of tests for entrance, the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini reports.
Residents over the age of 60 were also told that their vaccine passports will expire after a period of seven months after taking the vaccine and that they would be required to take a booster shot in order to maintain the validity of their health pass.
“This is indeed a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Prime Minister Mitsotakis said in his address, adding: “Greece is mourning unnecessary losses because it simply does not have the vaccination rates of other European countries.”
The news service Reuters reported on Thursday that just 62 per cent of the population of Greece is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, well under the 70 per cent target the government had previously hoped to achieve.
On Thursday, Greek authorities reported over 7,300 new coronavirus cases and 63 deaths as a result of the Chinese virus over the previous 24 hours. Since the beginning of November, Greece has seen a surge in new cases, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data.
Greece is just the latest country in Europe to announce stricter lockdown measures on the unvaccinated. Austria has seen some of the most draconian measures enacted over the past week after initially announcing that unvaccinated people would be placed under lockdown and then extending the lockdown to the entire country regardless of vaccination status.
The Austrian government has also stated that it would be forcing all residents to take the vaccine in February, with those who refuse the jab facing hefty fines and possible prison time.