Editorial Ta Nea: The end of toleration

One can certainly not accuse the government of a lack of toleration for non-vaccinated citizens.

It offered them incentives to get the jab and it exhausted all means possible to persuade them.

It let time go by, perhaps too much time.

Now is the time to take measures because our unvaccinated fellow citizens endanger not only their own lives but also the lives of others. Consequently, there can be no more toleration.

The enforcement of measures that will be announced very soon by the government will not be easy.

Restaurants and entertainment venues will be called upon to check whether customers have a vaccination certificate or have already fallen ill from COVID-19.

The education ministry will have to confirm whether teachers who have not been vaccinated have a negative COVID-19 rapid test for which the educators will have to pay.

Yet, there is no other choice. When there is a lack of a sense of personal responsibility, discipline must be imposed.

Naturally, people cannot be forced to be vaccinated if they do not want to. The Constitution is clear on this issue.

Therefore, it is the duty of the state to ensure that people who for whatever reason refuse to be vaccinated do not put the health and lives of others at risk.

This is imperative because people are returning from their holiday vacations, schools are about to open, and the advent of the fourth wave of the pandemic threatens to bring about a surge in the number of deaths and of intubated patients.