Editorial Ta Nea: Urgency

Compulsory vaccination for citizens who are age 60 and over is both necessary and urgent.

The numbers and all the data leave no time or space for further experimentation and toleration.

The evidence from the battles being waged in hospital ICUs overwhelmingly supports the necessity of compulsory vaccination.

Seven out of ten intubated patients are age 60 or older and eight out of ten are unvaccinated. The experience of European countries such as Portugal and Denmark demonstrates the usefulness of the measure.

In countries that have reached 99 percent vaccination in this age bracket, the pressure on the health system and the number of deaths are ten times lower than in Greece.

This is not a correctional or punitive measure, or anything like that.

We are talking about expanding the shield of defence during a strong surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to save human lives, about the challenge of achieving a return to some kind of normalcy, and about relieving the huge burden on the National Health System, which has reached the breaking point.

This is an issue of protecting the population. It is not guerrilla warfare or an exercise in coercion.

Even at this late date, this must be understood by those who have not realised the level of danger and the risks involved for the entire country.

We have the weapons. We have fine scientists. We have the experience. We can.