Greece has completed 11 million vaccinations as of Monday, Secretary General for Primary Health Marios Themistocleous said at the weekly live briefing on Monday. The total number refers to both those who have completed vaccination against Covid-19 or have had the first dose of vaccine only.
He said that over 5.85 million citizens have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, corresponding to 55.6% of the general population, or 65% of the adult population.
Over 5.15 million have completed their vaccination, or 52.5% of the general population and 61.6% of the adult one.
Age groups with the highest rates of vaccination include
- 75-79 (84.4%)
- 65-69 (80.1%)
- 70-74 (78.7%)
- 60-64 (75.9%).
The lowest rates are observed in the age groups
- 25-39 (ranging between 50% and 53.5%)
- 18-24 (39.4% have had at least one dose)
- 15-17 (11.1%)
- 12-14 (3%)
In addition, 4,000 individuals have been vaccinated at home (of a total 5,274 registered).
In remote areas, over 10,000 people have been vaccinated, and there are separate campaigns for special groups, including Roma, the homeless, and migrants, Themistokleous reported.
Greece’s vaccination program suffered a serious set back in the last couple of weeks and the original target to reach over 70% heard immunity by mid- or end of August seems a dream Greek authorities have to reshape.
With only 53% of the population fully vaccinated (stand: Aug 16, 2021) the government hopes that Greeks will flock to vaccination centers as soon as the summer vacations are over and before schools reopen on September 13.
It is worth noting that those who have received the 1st dose and waiting for the second are just 326,361. the number of those “partially vaccinated” decreases constantly.
All this as Greece is about to overtake Spain in cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days.
According to Worldometer Greece are already slighly ahead with 2,154 cases per 1 million population compared to Spain at 1,956 per 1 million population, both in a 7 day period. Perhaps more importantly cases in Greece are rising while in Spain they are falling.
The more you examine the data, especially between countries with different vaccination rates, the more you come to the conclusion that vaccination is doing a good job at preventing deaths but not as good at preventing spread. It does reduce spread but I think that herd immunity is now an impossibility. With the Delta variant you need to reduce spread by around 86 % to stop accelerating spread but it looks like vaccination only reduces it by around 75 % so even if you vaccinate 100 % of the population you can still get accelerating outbreaks. It looks like some level of control will still be necessary if we want to protect those who are not able to be vaccinated for medical reasons.