ATHENS – Issuing a last warning to health care workers in Greece who were suspended when they refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Health Minister Thanos Plevris said they will be fired March 31 if they don’t comply.

Plevris clarified that “all healthcare staff who are unvaccinated (have not had two doses of the vaccine) will remain suspended until March 31, 2022 and by that time there will be an overall measure on whether there must be obligatory vaccination for healthcare staff every year after the pandemic, and on whether they will remain in the [national health] system.”

On the relaxation of the measures, Plevris said that the overall view among EU ministers was that there should be a move in this direction, namely toward enforcing only those measures that were absolutely necessary.

Only they – along with those over 60 – are required to be inoculated after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis backed off a pledge to consider mandatory shots for ll if the pandemic worsed. It did, and he didn’t.

Not even police or tourism workers are required to be vaccinated and the health care workers have staged a number of futile protests as anti-vaxxers keep spreading the Coronavirus in the country.

Speaking on SKAI TV, Plevris added that Greece will as of Feb. 7 require a booster shot to be considered fully vaccinated and be allowed into most public gathering areas apart from supermarkets and pharmacies among exempted areas.

Despite a rising death toll, the New Democracy government further eased restrictions and turned its attention toward the economy while still trying to beat back the pandemic.