ATHENS — Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday expressed his satisfaction over the progress of the "Eleftheria" vaccination programme to protect the population against the novel coronavirus, and reaffirmed that the government is adopting an extremely cautious approach in the gradual easing of restrictions on social and economic activities, while briefing President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou at the Presidential Mansion.

Mitsotakis also briefed the president on the government's initiatives at a European Union level for speeding up the supply of vaccines:

"I want to reassure you that the vaccination process is proceeding at a very satisfactory rate. On Monday we vaccinated almost 20,000 citizens and today or by tomorrow at the latest we will have reached 200,000 people vaccinated. We could do administer more vaccinations but, as I have constantly repeated, we depend entirely on the number of vaccines we receive in the framework of the EU purchases context".

The prime minister also stressed that Greece will stick to a strategy of administering two doses of the vaccine per person, in line with the advice of the experts that the vaccine provides protection when both doses have been done. We do not know its effectiveness if only one dose has been given and that is the reason we insist greatly on the timetable being followed.

On her part, Sakellaropoulou underlined that vigilance against the pandemic must be unrelenting as "the virus is a constant and active threat," while expressing hope that the current difficulties surrounding the delivery of the vaccines will be temporary.