ATHENS – Protesting the New Democracy government's requirement for health care sector workers and officials to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the anti-vaxxer director of a military hospital in Greece's capital was forced to quit.

The Lt. General, who was not named, refused to be vaccinated and was head of the NIMTS (417) military hospital, said SKAI TV, which added that he had told the Defense Ministry he would refuse the shot and was asked to resign.

The hospital has been placed under a provisional administrator as the government is also suspending without pay those in the health care sector who refuse to be inoculated as the Coronavirus is spreading, chiefly because of the unvaccinated, who are especially at risk from therising dominant Delta Variant.

Despite the suspension order issued on Sept. 1, Kathimerini said that some 300 unvaccinated officers and Armed Forces members working in military hospitals haven't been put on leave because they haven't received their suspension notices yet, with no explanation why as it has been given to others in the sector.

Greece has a small but hard-core contingent of anti-vaxxers who don't believe the shots are safe or effective, will alter their DNA or are part of an international conspiracy to control their minds, although they haven't said for what end.