M. Gaga: The goal is to take our lives back and move towards normalcy

The goal is to get our lives back on track and move slowly towards normalcy, taking care of each other safely, Deputy Health Minister Mina Gaga said during the briefing on the pandemic.

He urged everyone to be vaccinated.

“We do not want to impose the vaccine on anyone, but we really ask everyone to be vaccinated,” he said, reiterating that the vaccine is safe, has no side effects, on the contrary the disease is serious, often leading to death. He even mentioned that in Northern Greece a young man lost the battle for his life noting “we do not want to have such deaths, it is very easy to prevent them by vaccination”.

Ms. Gaga added that vaccination does not mean that it will cover 100% of all people and that no one will get sick, but certainly the chance of getting a serious illness is 20 times lower, there are fewer deaths, less suffering.

He also referred to the pressure that the health system has been receiving for almost two years, which is “intense, especially in Northern Greece” and asked everyone to protect the health system as well.

He pointed out that the ministry will do what it can to “have staff in the hospitals”, but it is important not to have these many cases that we had last year.

“In these conditions, providing quality care is always difficult and also, remember that in addition to the people with coronavirus, who of course we will take care of, we have all the other patients who also need to have access to the hospital. “The more we take care of each other, the better it will be,” concluded Deputy Health Minister Mina Gaga.