Inoculation

The body cites higher risks of heart inflammation post-inoculation

Around 61% of Greece’s total population has been fully inoculated

Turkey has widened its vaccination program to cover new groups, including academics, university staff, and musicians, as well as movie and TV series production crews.

"We will remove the outbreak from the country's agenda as soon as possible as we add more professionals and age groups to the inoculation program by the day," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter.

President-elect Joe Biden led a moving tribute on Jan. 19 for U.S. coronavirus victims - now more than 400,000 - as European nations battled record daily fatalities and fear spread of new virus strains.

Greek health authorities started vaccinating people aged over 85 against Covid-19 on Saturday, while continuing to inoculate doctors and nurses.

The first person from that age group to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech jab in Athens' Evangelismos Hospital was a woman called Kassiani, who will turn 91 in a few days. She was followed by Irene, aged 90.

The election speculation sparked by Monday's cabinet reshuffle is, to put it mildly, out of the question. 

The country is still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic; the nationwide inoculation campaign, still in its early stages, presents the authorities with a huge challenge; and the conditions surrounding the economy's return to normality are uncertain. 

The road to "Freedom" - as the Greek government has dubbed its coronavirus vaccination drive - promises to be a bumpy one. We have already learned that Greece will receive a much smaller number of jabs in January than originally anticipated.

Health Minister Prof . Kostadin Angelov said that 699 people were inoculated against COVID-19 yesterday. He explained that the number of the vaccinated is the highest in Plovdiv, followed by Sofia, Burgas and Sofia region.

The health minister said there were no reports of any severe side effects.

A large-scale operation involving the police, coast guard and the armed forces has already been prepared for the storage and transport of vaccines when the first delivery arrives on December 26, and the first inoculations begin the day after.

The inoculation of doctors and medical staff at Sotiria Hospital in Athens will begin on December 27, Mina Gaga, director of the hospital's 7th pulmonary clinic, told Skai radio on Friday.

Gaga said all hospital workers have said they will have the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

"It is the only way to ensure everyone is protected," she said.