Greeks have come out in droves as the Omicron variant surges, prompting more than 500,000 vaccine booster shot appointments in the last 10 days confirmed the Primary Health Care Secretary General Marios Themistocleous on Thursday.
During a regular briefing, the official said that in the 60-plus age group entitled to a booster shot, 90% have set appointments for it, while the under-60 group has done so by 63.8%.
He also gave the overall vaccination rate, broken down by age group. Leading in high rates of vaccination are those aged 70-74 (92.3%), 75-79 (92.1%), 65-69 (91%), and 80-84 (90%).
Over 7,395,000 citizens have received at least one shot - this corresponds to 80.2% of the adult population (70.4% of the general one), Themistocleous said.
Infectious diseases doctors speaking at the briefing said that a total of 33 cases of infections with the Omicron variant have been identified in Greece - 18 of them on Crete - and another 98 are suspected of being infections with the same variant.
In general, there is a slight rise in infections in Greece, they said, with Laconia (Peloponnese), Chania and Rethymno (Crete) leading in terms of increase rates, while the death rate has dropped by 12% and new hospital admissions by 11% nationally.
