Persuasion

By Aris Ravanos

A quite substantial percentage of the Greek population refuses to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and of course they provide a variety of justifications for this.

Obviously, it is only natural that you will have citizens who harbour concerns about the effectiveness or safety of the vaccine.

The idea that a harsher punishment would be more dissuasive was simplistic. A punishment, when excessive, risks not scaring anyone and becoming a dead letter.

The government seems to have quickly realized its mistake and rushed to rectify it.

The great fatigue caused by the extension of health restrictions cannot be addressed by enforcement methods alone.

Some Islamic apologists will say anything to persuade people

Greece is not a police state and the government is relying on the "power of persuasion" to convince citizens that restricting their movements over the Easter holiday in particular is the best way to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Tuesday.

The pundits who articulate public discourse in Greece regarding the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences appear to be missing an important point: We do not all have access to the new media.

"The sociologist part of me is still looking for the answer to this question," daily Hürriyet writer Ertuğrul Özkök wrote in an article published on Nov. 21, 2015, three weeks after the Nov. 1 general elections.