In the past 24 hours Greece confirmed 4,801 new coronavirus infections, according to the National Public Health Organization (EODY). There were also 77 more fatalities, which brings the total number of deaths to 19,553.
The report went on to reveal that of those who succumbed to the disease, 95.3 pct had an underlying condition and/or were aged 70 or over. This brings me to the point of this report, the deplorable situation for the aged in Greece. This is so sad, once you understand that Greece is a country of the old. And to add insult to injury, now these older Greeks will be fined and corraled, by a government that marginalized them from the onset of the pandemic.
On Sunday, I went to me scheduled COVID booster (3rd shot) appointment at one of the centers here in Heraklion. Unlike my previous visits, this one gave me pause for several reasons. First of all, the staff administering the vaccines all seemed extremely stressed, you might even say mean, if I am to be accurate. I was in line for some time, and ultimately understood the reason for their poor attitudes.
Although there were quite a few younger people present to get their COVID booster or initial vaccinations, the vast majority of the several dozens waiting to be vaccinated were elderly. Or, to me more precise, the immobile and most vulnerable of Crete’s citizens. I could not help but take note, being 66 myself, how horrific the experience was for both staff, the extremely elderly to be vaccinated, and the family members who often had to help these old people.
I wish I were better able to convey the fear that blanketed this clinic’s halls and waiting areas. If only I could have videotaped a poor, old woman scared to death, having to be reassured and cajouled into being jabbed. Or, how the staff were so stressed by the repeat, after repeat, after repeat of the same scenario. I felt ashamed, to be honest, to be one of the only people able to walk into the examination room unaided. “Pitiful!” What the government ended up doing to Greece’s elderly is a pitiful excuse for governing. Inhuman, if you want the truth.
There was this one man, a proud guy you could tell, who would not let his grandaughter help him out of the waiting room chair. I watched his sun streaked face grimmace as he tried to stand. The effort must have been torture, for he might as well have been claiming the summit of Mt. Ida, for the pain that showed in his dark eyes. I saw a tear run down his grandchild’s face, and a twinkling of pride there too. I almost wept myself.
The reporter in me prompted my to take photos, but I cannot share them. These brave people deserve their dignity, after all. Why in hell Mitsotakis and his ministers did not send vaccines to their homes, shall always remain a bitter mystery for me. After having prioritized anything and everything over these most vulnerable citizens, in favor of assisting rich hoteliers and foreign corporations, this final insult makes me despise the Greek politian even more. What cads they must be, to allow this.
I will say once more, that Mitsotakis’ “Operation Blue Freedom,” to send 700,000 vaccine vials to party islands instead of to the aged in places like Crete, was a crime against humanity. And, after blaming everyone from the European Union, to vaccine makers, to the youth of the country for the subsequent waves of COVID, the final straw has been to penalize old people, the very demographic the vaccine is supposed to protect, is cruel and unusual punishment.
If the regime had educated the people properly, if the ministers had been focused on the health emergency first, the certainly thousands of elderly Greeks would be here to smile up at the Aegean sun.
They are not, however. Many of my friends are gone because there was no program. Educating the villages, the young and the old, about the necessity of preventative measures, took a back seat to tourism ministers running all over the world selling Greece as the safest destination in the world. And now, the people who carried the traditions of Crete, the building blocks of Filoxenia itself, they hobble and limp their way into the turstiles like unwanted cattle, scared to death because idiots can never think past their noses.
4,801 cases. That’s very close to the total of the first wave in Greece. Just before Mitsotakis and Co. began pounding their chest and proclaiming victory over COVID! And June 2020, when the TUI jets started flying again. Shame on you PM Mitsotakis, everybody deserves one more ice cream season.
