Thousands of self-testing kits to be available to office workers
Office workers in the public and private sectors will be able to begin self-testing next week, as some 900,000 kits will be made available at the country’s pharmacies starting at the end of the week, Greece’s minister of state said on Tuesday.
“I feel that we are very close to freedom… Vaccinations and self-tests are our biggest weapons,” Giorgos Gerapetritis said in comments to Open TV, a day after the country’s high schools were reopened with mandatory self-testing for Covid-19.
“It is very important that thanks to this new tool, we are in a position so that asymptomatic fellow-citizens and children, that is citizens who could not be checked under different circumstances, are already in self-isolation and not contributing to the spread of the virus,” he said, pointing to the positive results of the first foray into self-testing kits, during which only around 600 pupils and educators tested positive from among tens of thousands.
Gerapetritis said that after high schools, self-testing will be expanded to other areas. “We are talking about categories of workers in the private and public sector, like in retail commerce, justice, open-air dining and banking transactions,” he said, without specifying how the rollout of the kits will be organized.
The official also did not expand on whether this means the government is getting ready to reopen restaurants.
Self-testing kits are being distributed free of charge by pharmacies to specific groups of people under a system organized by the self-testing.gov.gr platform, where citizens must also report any negative results. Only people who belong to the approved category are entitled to up to two kits a week.
