ATHENS
\nGreece will give young adults \u20ac150 ($180) in credit to get vaccinated as it launches a two-tier access policy over the summer, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Monday.
\nMitsotakis said that starting July 15, Greek citizens under age 26 would be eligible for the credit in a digital wallet after receiving the first dose of their COVID-19 vaccination.
\n\u201cWe hope that young people will take advantage of this opportunity. The state thanks you for acting responsibly and doing something that I am certain you would have done anyway,\u201d Mitsotakis said in a televised speech.
\nHeavily reliant on tourism, Greece is looking for ways to fully reopen its economy after recently making the vaccination available to all adult age groups.
\nKyriakos Pierrakakis, a minister for digital policy, said the digital wallet scheme will focus on the tourism and entertainment industry.
\n\u201cThis card will not be accepted everywhere. It will be targeted for specific activities,\u201d Pierrakakis said. \u201cIt can be used (to buy) air, ferry, and rail tickets, for car rental, camp sites, (holiday) accommodation, travel services, the cinema, theater and music and dance performances, museums, archaeological sites, among other services.\u201d
\nGovernment officials say additional freedoms will be granted to vaccination certificate holders, but haven\u2019t finalized details of that policy, adding that they are also examining legal options to make vaccination compulsory for various employment categories including nursing home staff.
\nUp to 100,000 people are currently receiving their vaccination shots daily in Greece, a country of 10.7 million people. But reluctance among certain age groups to get vaccinated is a major concern for public health officials as infections of the highly contagious delta variant continue to rise across Europe.
\nAround 35 percent of the total population, or 42 percent of the adult population, will have completed their vaccination by the end of June, according to government estimates, with those numbers due to rise to 48 percent and 57 percent, respectively, by the end of July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS Greece will give young adults \u20ac150 ($180) in credit to get vaccinated as it launches a two-tier access policy over the summer, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Monday. Mitsotakis said that starting July 15, Greek citizens under age 26 would be eligible for the credit in a digital wallet after receiving the first dose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n