Vassilis Kikilias

Front-line staff members at Greece's hospitals continue to receive their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine for a second day Monday.

Vaccinations will be carried out at Attica's five reference hospitals: Evangelismos, Sotiria, Attikon, Thriasio and Asklipion.

There are 11 areas in Greece close to "red alert" status due to the rising rate of coronavirus infections and the government is considering tighter local lockdowns, Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias said Wednesday.

Apart from the Western Attica regional unit, all others are in central and northern Greece.

Mobile units of the National Organization for Public Health (EODY) will on Thursday conduct rapid antigen tests on the eastern Aegean island of Chios, in Fthiotida, central Greece, in Magnesia, and Thessaloniki, authorities said.

Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias on Wednesday said that while hospital admissions are starting to even out with releases, the public health system is still skating on very thin ice, with Covid-19 intensive care wards at 83% of capacity nationwide.

Mobile teams will be dispatched to the homes of citizens such as the disabled, who will be unable to reach centers providing vaccinations for the coronavirus, according to Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias.

Speaking to Skai, he reiterated that the vaccine will be safe, controlled by international drug organizations, free and not mandatory.

Twenty-one lawmakers, doctors by training, volunteered to help overwhelmed hospitals during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Greece.

Greece is set to extend its lockdown measures beyond the end of November given the spread of Covid-19 and the pressure on hospitals, the country's health minister warned Monday.

The Athens and Piraeus hospital doctors' association (EINAP) has called on Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias to facilitate an increase in the number of regular surgeries from the current rate of 50 percent of the monthly average in 2019 to 80 percent over the next 10 days.

Greek Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias on Thursday received US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt at his office in Athens for talks on further strengthening the exchange medical equipment, technology and knowhow, as Greece took delivery of 200,000 antibody tests from US medical device developer Abbott Laboratories.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou thanked the country's doctors, nurses and other hospital workers for their "self-sacrifice" as "front-line fighters" in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic during a visit to the capital's Evangelismos Hospital on Tuesday.