Sharjah24 – AFP: Around 7,000 people protested in Athens on Sunday against a new rule obliging health workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19, said police who fired teargas to quell violence among the demonstrators.
The rule change, which came into effect on Wednesday requires that all personnel working in hospitals be vaccinated.
The demonstrators waved Greek flags and brandished placards declaring: "We are not against vaccines, but against fascism" and "Long live democracy".
Sporadic violence broke out in the evening. One group of demonstrators threw stones and bottles at the police who responded with tear gas, according to an AFP videographer on the spot.
Greece's government on Tuesday announced an array of new restrictions and the end, next month, of free testing for those who remain unjabbed against Covid-19 in an effort to boost vaccination rates.
The government took the measures in part to encourage people to get vaccinated, as the contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 takes hold.
At the moment 99 percent of seriously-ill coronavirus patients, those intubated in hospital, have not been vaccinated.
Retirement home workers have been obliged to get vaccinated since mid-August.
Ten employees at a home in Volos, in the centre of the country, were recently suspended from work.
More than 5.7 million of Greece's 10.7 million inhabitants have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus,
But the spread of the Delta variant continues to cause concern.
On Sunday Greece registered around 1,500 new Covid cases.
Over 13,600 people have died of the disease in the country since the pandemic began.
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