Editorial: The day after the pandemic

All the facts and data confirm that we are at the cusp of the global public health crisis between the spasms of the COVID-19 pandemic's peak and the global push for the immunity that vaccines offer.

We are in the midst of an intense and harsh phase of the virus's transmission.

Undoubtedly, however, no one now can dispute the fact that science and its accomplishments - vaccines and medicines that are being developed - will prevail over the pandemic and will create the conditions for a return to normalcy.

As a rapidly growing body of evidence internationally shows, expediting vaccination programmes leads to a wall of immunity and helps to gradually meet the preconditions for freeing up societies and their economies from a host of public health restrictions.

The UK is already preparing to announce formally that it has built a wall of immunity through a massive vaccination rollout.

Israel also has nearly freed its citizens from a plethora of restrictions, and it is expected that the US with the current pace of vaccination will soon be in the same encouraging position.

In Greece, and the EU overall, despite problems with the supply chain and delays in distributing vaccines the rollout of late is proceeding rapidly and within a matter of weeks we will have vaccinated the most vulnerable social group - those who are over 60 years old.

In Greece over two million vaccines have been administered and if everything goes smoothly, without unexpected glitches, by late July five million doses will have been administered and the much desired wall of immunity is expected to have been achieved.

The aforementioned positive developments must not undermine vigilance until we are out of the woods, yet they indicate that we can be...