Vaccination

The next three months will be crucial for efforts to confront challenges from the Omicron strain of COVID-19, a health expert has said, calling for speeding up the drive to give booster shoots.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca last week announced the first cases of the Omicron variant in Turkey.

Universal compulsory vaccination against coronavirus in Germany could become one of the tools in the fight against the pandemic. This was stated by the new German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel, published on Saturday.

A man has been vaccinated against Covid-19 ten times in one day on behalf of other people, which triggered an investigation by the Ministry of Health of the Pacific, writes the New Zealand portal Stuff.

He stated that the number of infected people is decreasing, as well as the number of patients in intensive care, but that the situation is still not completely favorable, because, as he says, we still have a high number of deaths.

With coalition-wide negotiations ongoing, Heger called on his political partners to "not succumb to anger" and "built a culture of respect" between each other. "I am convinced that the key to change is not banging our fists on the table… but showing each other respect and decisiveness," he wrote on social media.

Google's annual recap of 2021's top trending searches in Turkey has shown the most googled word this year was "EBA giriş" (EBA log in), to get access to the website of the state-run Education Information Network (EBA) channel which was set up for students who had to continue education online due to the pandemic.

Greece will reduce the validity of coronavirus certificates from six to three months. The government submitted a proposal for the change on Thursday, explaining its decision with expert advice, Kathimerini reported.

Omicron will not skip us, just as none of the other variants skipped us. So far no additional measures are needed, we have taken all the necessary ones. This was stated to bTV by the caretaker Minister of Health Stoycho Katsarov.

Anti-vaccine parents who do not send their children to school will be punished by up to 2 years in prison and fines, the Greek Ministry of Education ruled in an amendment submitted to parliament late today.

Turkey may still have time to prepare for the Omicron strain of COVID-19 by speeding up the jab drive, but vaccine complacency among the population continues to pose risks, Professor Alper Şener from the Heath Ministry's Science Board has said.