Greece will be getting new coronavirus vaccines in the next two months, Alternate Health Minister Mina Gaga said on Thursday, with Novavax arriving on February 21 and Sanofi in April.
On Tuesday the government had announced that the first batch of 168,000 doses of Novavax will be administered at inoculation centers in early March.
At a regular briefing, Gaga also said of the requisition of private hospitals for additional beds that 350 patients are now cared for in private hospitals.
Pediatric infectious diseases doctor Vana Papaevangelou said that infection rates are stabilizing but people with active infections number 140,000 nationally. Of people hospitalized nationally, 80% are older than 55, while the number of hospitalized children under 11 years of age is stable and totals betewen 90 to 100.
Professor Gkikas Magiorkinis - who along with Papaevangelou are on the Health Ministry's coronavirus committee - said that more than 70% of patients who die of Covid are over 70 years of age. For this age group, "no variant of the virus is entirely safe," he said, noting that "even if they go through one infection, that should not give them a false sense of safety" and does not guarantee that a second time around they will not be in danger.
He added there were indications the pressure on the National Health System would let off in the coming weeks.