ATHENS – “Additional measures will be taken if this is needed but there won’t be a lockdown,” Development and Investments Minister Adonis Georgiadis repeated on Wednesday in an a interview on ANT1 breakfast television. He had been asked whether new measures against the pandemic will be taken if the epidemiological indicators worsen further.

Asked whether the government was showing signs of “laxness” in its response to the pandemic and no longer adopting the recommendations of the health experts, Georgiadis noted that the health experts proposed measures relating to the healthcare dimension of the pandemic but the government’s decisions had to also take other parameters into account, including economic parameters.

He insisted that the existence of a vaccine made a great difference with respect to the previous year and it was no longer possible “to stop everybody’s life because some people have chosen not to get vaccinated.”

He also cited practical difficulties in the implementation of measures restricting the entrance of the unvaccinated to supermarkets, similar to those in force for other shops, but said that they were being examined.