ATHENS – As COVID-19 cases – but not deaths – are receding, and restrictions being eased, Greece on March 1 opened a platform for the Novavax vaccine to be used, in a further bid to accelerate inoculations.

It’s made by an American company in Maryland and adds to others being used in a bid to further beat back the pandemic that’s now in a third year, with almost 30 percent of residents still not vaccinated.

General-Secretary for Primary Healthcare Marios Themistokleous said appointments for the first shot can be made on the emvolio.goc.gr site for the company’s Nuvaxovid vaccine, shots beginning March 5.

Nuvaxovid is only available for people who are not inoculated against SARS-CoV-2, Themistokleous said, clarifying that it cannot be used as a booster, with only half of those in Greece who got two shots taking the third.

Themistokleous said that over 7.53 million citizens have completed their vaccination (at least two shots), which corresponds to 82. percent of the adult population and 71.7 percent overall, said the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA.

The vaccination program had slowed since the summer of 2021 after Prime Minsiter Kyriakos Mitsotakis backed away from a pledge to make it mandatory if the pandemic worsened.

Rabid and sometimes violent anti-vaxxers, who believe the vaccines aren’t safe or effective, or part of a international conspiracy to alter their DNA or control their minds, continued to spread the Coronavirus.