People who contracted the newly appeared variant Omicron of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) had mild symptoms, National Vaccination Committee chair Maria Theodoridou said on Monday, but they were all young in age.
At a regular briefing on the pandemic, Theodoridou said data is still at an early stage on Omicron, but “it appears that cellular immunity – that is, memory cells – protect from most variants,” and she repeated the importance of vaccination.
Theodoridou added that the committee will soon decide on whether to approve vaccination with Pfizer’s shots for children aged 5 to 11 years of age. Children’s dosage is a third of that for adults and these vaccines are expected to arrive in Greece after December 20.
Speaking at the same briefing, Secretary General for Primary Health Care Marios Themistocleous said that as of December people will be able to get vaccinated on Sundays. There will be no vaccinations on December 25-26 (Christmas) or on New Year’s Day.
In terms of vaccination rates, Themistocleous said that a total of 7 million vaccinations have been carried out for the first dose, or 79.2% of the adult population (67% of the general population).
Source: ANA-MPA
