ATHENS – Driven by the now dominant Delta Variant strain from India, Greece's COVID-19 pandemic, lingering because of the unvaccinated and health measure defiance, is expected to crest by the end of September or early October, a Greek Health Ministry official said. 

That came amid growing worry worry growing now over so many people needing to be put on ventilators in public hospitals and more deaths daily, while anti-vaxxers insist that vaccines that have held down the numbers aren't safe or effective.

Speaking to a private TV channel, Marios Themistokleous, Health Ministry secretary general for Primary Health Care, also said that the National Vaccination Committee approved a a booster shot for the immunosuppressed.

Those are people who have undergone an organ or marrow transplant, cancer patients and those undergoing chemotherapy and renal dialysis patients and especially susceptible, needing a third shot.

A booster will also be given to to vulnerable groups and people facing serious health issues, while health authorities are considering expanding the plan to the wider public, said Kathimerini.

Booster shots will start being administered in early September, said Themistokleous, when Mitsotakis said he would reconsider whether to order the vaccines be mandatory if the pandemic isn't slowing.

So far, only health workers are required to be inoculated, not even tourism workers, including those on islands where the Coronavirus has spread, also because of wild partying and people not keeping safe social distances, and not caring.