ATHENS – “The country is not going to shut down again. The prime minister was absolutely clear on this yesterday,” government spokesperson Yiannis Oikonomou said on Thursday in an interview with ANT1 TV.

The government spokesperson referred to the two interventions announced on Wednesday by Prime Minister Mitsotakis with respect to the need for society to cope with a spike in prices. “One concerns the rural world: Greek producers who are members of cooperatives and young farmers will have a refund of the consumption tax on fuel in 2022. The second is that there will be a second increase in the minimum wage in 2022. All this is possible because the government has achieved growth rates that allow it to be on the side of the people, of society,” he underlined.

Oikonomou stressed that the virus is spreading everywhere and that the measures taken by the government imposing mandatory tests for the unvaccinated in a number of activities are protective, not punitive.

“They were taken for two reasons: First, because it is an indirect way to exert pressure and persuade more people to get vaccinated and secondly, to protect everyone else. We have a great legacy, we have 72 pct of the adult population, which is vaccinated, we have taken back our lives to a very great extent. The children are in school, students are in the universities, restaurants are operating, people are out and about, the economy works. In order to keep this, we need to implement some measures,” he noted.