The head of Pfizer has said that people will “likely” need a third dose of his company’s COVID-19 shot within six to 12 months of vaccination, while defending the relatively higher cost of the jab.
CEO Albert Bourla also said annual vaccinations against the coronavirus may well be required.
“We need to see what would be the sequence, and for how often we need to do that, that remains to be seen,” Bourla told broadcaster CNBC in an interview aired on Thursday.
“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed,” he said, adding that variants will play a “key role”.
“It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus.”
Researchers currently do not know how long vaccines provide protection against the coronavirus.
Earlier this month, Pfizer published a study that said its jab is more than 91-percent effective at protecting against the coronavirus and more than 95-percent effective against severe cases of COVID-19 up to six months after the second dose.
But researchers say more data is needed to determine whether protection lasts after six months.
In Australia, the Pfizer vaccine is preferred over the AstraZeneca vaccine in adults aged less than 50 years following confirmation of a “rare but serious risk” of fatal blood clots.
‘The Music Space’ music school in Ramsgate is reopening, following extensive renovations, with a vibrant, music filled open day on Sunday April 18th.
The music school was opened in Connells Point in May 2017 by Heidi (Spiliopoulos) Holt, later expanding to ‘The Music Space #2’ in Ramsgate in May 2018. According to their website, it’s creation came from a dream to help to “nurture that seed inside a person who has the desire to learn music and through nurture and teaching”.
Speaking to The Greek Herald, Heidi said the open day is intended to be a “celebration” for the renovations conducted this year.
“Also to just sort of say thank you to our existing families and to encourage them to bring family members and friends so they can celebrate with us,” Heidi said.
“We have students performing, some of our teachers performing…. there’ll be snacks and balloons and a couple of hours of fun.”
Heidi also expressed her excitement in introducing bouzouki classes, which will be led and instructed by Manolis Michalakis, who has written over 18 books about the method of teaching guitar and bouzouki.
“For me he is someone that can impart his life experience as well as technical skills,” Heidi said.
“So it’s not just about learning scales and everything, but it’s about getting deeper than that and understanding music in itself and cultivating a love for that.”
“I wanted to let families know in the area that bouzouki classes are starting next term. So if they want to do private lessons or group classes, it’s a great opportunity them to start.”
To RSVP for the open day, people can send an email to: teachme@themusicspace.com.au
New parents of pre-school aged children sometimes have the fear that their child will remain behind in English if they persevere with Greek at home.
Sometimes young children start school speaking only their community language and not English. They are slower to pick up English and some parents panic.
This is not a problem. Remember one thing: English is the dominant language in Australia. Whether you want it or not your child will learn English and he or she will be stronger in that language than they ever will be in Greek unless you do something about it.
A slower uptake of a second language does not mean that they kids will not be as good at school. Academic success may be important to you but little children deserve to be allowed to develop at their own pace.
In the long run many studies have shown that bilingual children grow up to be smarter adults than monolingual children. They do better in tests and so from an academic perspective the best way to encourage your child to be smart is by starting them off with Greek.
You don’t have to send them to a Greek school if you don’t want to. Any activities that include another language are very good for the brain.
The Greek language is especially helpful to learn since it is the basis of all Western languages.
Learning Greek will help them understanding English, Spanish (which includes over 17,000 Greek words), Italian, French and many others including classical languages such as Latin which has also borrowed heavily from Ancient Greek.
Remember the Greek your children are learning is the same Greek that has evolved from ancient times.
*Eleni Elefterias-Kostakidis is a teacher of Modern Greek and University lecturer.
Read Eleni Elefterias’ column ‘Insight or Perspective’ in Greek, every Saturday in The Greek Herald’s print edition or get your subscription here.
Dimitris Mitropanos (Δημήτρης Μητροπάνος) was a Greek singer. He was renowned for his mastery of Laïkó, a Greek music style.
Mitropanos lived in his native city of Trikala in northwest Thessaly until the age of 16, beginning his musical career in 1964.
He worked with some of the most renowned Greek composers, such as Mikis Theodorakis, Stavros Xarhakos, Giorgos Zabetas, Manos Hatzidakis, Marios Tokas, and Thanos Mikroutsikos.
From an early age, he worked during summers to assist his family financially. First as a waiter in his uncle’s restaurant and later at ribbon cutting wood. After the third grade of junior high, in 1964, he went to Athens to live with his uncle on Acharnon Street. Before finishing high school, he began working as a singer.
At that time, with some encouragement from Grigoris Bithikotsis, whom he met at a gathering at his uncle’s company at which he sang, Mitropanos visited EMI-Lambropoulos Bros. Ltd. (EMIAL S.A.)
It was then that Takis Lampropoulos introduced him το Giorgos Zampetas, with whom he would work alongside at “Ksimeromata.”
Mitropanos considered Giorgos Zampetas to be a great teacher and a second father to himself. As he once stated, ‘ Zambetas is the only man in music who helped me without expecting anything. With all my other colleagues, I got something and I gave something in return”.
In 1966, Mitropanos met Mikis Theodorakis and sang the Party songs “Romiosini “and” Axion Esti “in a series of concerts in Greece and Cyprus.
In 1967, Mitropanos recorded his first 7″ single “Thessaloniki.” This followed the recording of “Chameni Paschalia”, a song that was censored by the Greek military junta and thus never released.
In a long career in the Greek music industry, Dimitris Mitropanos collaborated with leading artists of the Laïko and Éntekhno music. Giorgos Zampetas, Mikis Theodorakis, Dimos Moutsis, Apostolos Kaldaras, Takis Mousafiris, Christos Nikolopoulos Yannis Spanos were composers with whom Mitropanos collaborated, building a career intertwined with the Laïko tradition, until the late 1980s.
On 17 April 2012, Mitropanos suffered a heart attack earlier that morning and died. He is survived by his two daughters and his wife, Venia.
Cyprus, Greece, Israels and the UAE said they would seek to deepen their cooperation in fields ranging from energy to fighting COVID, saying budding ties could change the face of a region more synonymous with conflict.
“The evolving web of regional cooperation is creating a new narrative, one that is cracking the glass ceiling of the prevailing (one) of our neighbourhood as a region of turmoil, conflict and crisis,” said Cypriot Foreign Minister and host Nikos Christodoulides.
The UAE and fellow Gulf state Bahrain in September became the first Arab states in a quarter of a century to sign agreements to establish formal ties with Israel, forged largely through shared fears of Iran.
The so-called Abraham Accords are U.S.-brokered agreements which have ushered in public rapprochements between Israel and several Arab states.
Friday’s encounter on the east Mediterranean island was attended by Anwar Gargash, a former UAE foreign minister who worked on the historic normalisation of relations with Israel last year. He was there in his capacity as diplomatic advisor to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed.
Discussions in Cyprus, he said, focussed on ways to enhance joint action in facing the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, medical research and the distribution of vaccines, as well as energy security in the region.
“This meeting is one of the results of the changes that have taken place in the Middle East over the past year, thanks to a brave and bold decision by leaders,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi.
He said the accords had created a ‘real opportunity’ to change the face of the Middle East.
“And if you don’t believe that, ask yourselves if you could have seen this picture only just a year ago,” he said, standing at a podium next to Gargash, against the backdrop of the calm seas of the east Mediterranean.
Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters semi-finals on Friday when his opponent, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, was forced to retire due to injury.
After the fourth seed clinched the first set 7-5 on Court Rainier III, Davidovich Fokina called time on the quarter-final clash. The Spaniard took a medical timeout at 3-3 to receive treatment to his left quadricep.
“I am happy to be at the place where I am right now… I am happy with my performance today. I think I fought really hard. Even in difficult moments, I was putting out my best tennis,” Tsitsipas said in his post-match interview.
“I saw he got injured in the middle of the first set and I took advantage of it [and] tried to make him play.
“It wasn’t easy, of course. There were certain moments which were a bit tricky and uncertain, but I stayed composed and imposed my game later in that match.”
Tsitsipas is through to his sixth Masters 1000 semi-final. The Greek has now advanced to the final four at all three clay-court Masters 1000 events. He will face Daniel Evans for a spot in the championship match.
The Samian Association of Canberra will be holding a fundraiser in support of the victims of the Samos earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea since 1981.
Eleni Gianakis became President of the Samian Association after noticing little had been done by the association’s older generation with regards to events and fundraisers.
“When I grew up, our parents were so involved and we had dances and picnics and that had kind of faded out. So being a mother now, I wanted to expose my children to that kind of thing,” Eleni Gianakis said to The Greek Herald.
“I thought if we take over and maybe we can start doing functions and barbecues and get the community together again.”
Being a very “tight knit” Greek community in Canberra, Gianakis said it’s important that Greeks, and especially Samians, keep their close ties with the heritage. One particular incident that brought the community closer was the devastating earthquake in the Aegean Sea, hitting the northeast coast of Samos.
A destroyed car and collapsed buildings after an earthquake hit the island of Samos, Greece, Oct. 30, 2020. (AFP Photo)
The earthquake brought devastation to the island and neighbouring country of Turkey, with both countries suffering a combined 119 fatalities, also leaving 1,053 injured and 15,000 homeless.
Buildings in Samos suffered severe damage, particularly in Karlovasiwhere a large church had partially collapsed. In Karlovasi, over 100 buildings were damaged upon inspection. Following the earthquake, Samos was also affected by hundreds of aftershocks and flooding from a tsunami, which also rocked the islands of Ikaria, Kos and Chios.
It was the first time since the 2017 Aegean Sea earthquake that there are earthquake-related deaths in Greece.
Karlovasi church on Samos sustained significant damage. (Photo from Demetrios Ioannou on Twitter).
Witnessing the despair and destruction seen on the Greek island, Gianakis organised for a community event to be held on Friday, May 21, at the Hellenic Club Woden to help raise much needed funds for the earthquake victims.
“It will be a dance and fundraiser to try and raise money to send over to Samos so we can help them with the schools and churches that need repairing,” the Samian Association President said.
“We’re just trying to assist in any way we can.”
Gianakis has been applauded by the Greek Community of Canberra for her repeated volunteer work and recognised for her tireless and selfless efforts to benefiting the community.
Hellenic Club Woden.
“I guess it’s part of my up-bringing, like having my dad so involved in the Greek community and being a part of it. I want my children to be a part of it as well and to feel proud and to not lose where we come from,” Gianakis added.
Being the fifth time she has changed the date of the fundraiser event due to COVID-19 restrictions, she hopes that the event will be a “good fun night” and to have people come and enjoy themselves.
People can book tickets through the Hellenic club Woden website, as well as use the promotional code ‘Samian21’ for the Abode hotel, with a discount on a room.
Anyone who wishes to donate can do so through the bank account:
Greek Australian businessman Mark Bouris has listed his Double Bay apartment in block 1788 with a starting price $200,000 less than what he bought it for.
Ray White TRG agent Patrick Cosgrove and principal Gavin Rubinstein have a price guide of $3.5m-$3.85m ahead of a May 11 auction for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with parking at B302/20-26 Cross Street, across from the Intercontinental Hotel.
According to realestate.com.au, the wealthy businessman bought the apartment for $3.7m off-the-plan in 2017 in the name of ex-wife Katherine Bouris’s investment trust, of which he’s the trustee. The apartment’s construction and final design was only completed this year.
Patrick Cosgrove, however, says early indications are that the sale price will go well beyond the guide.
“I think there’s a very good chance we’ll hit that four [million-dollar] mark or over … we’ve got really good interest,” he said.
He says most of the interest so far is coming from professional singles and couple owner-occupiers.
“It’s state of the art — in terms of quality and finishes I’ve seen nothing better than this.”
Mark Bouris is the founder of financial planning firm Yellow Brick Road and Wizard Home Loans. The exclusive Double Bay apartment is reportedly the first to be re-offered to the market, although developers are still to sell a one-bedder, three-bedder and penthouse.
Georges Vizyenos, novelist and poet, was born by the family name Georges Syrmas, in a destitute family environment of five children, on March the 8th, 1849.
He has left an unparalleled legacy by introducing a set of ground-breaking techniques in his writing, majorly by means of the profoundly soul-deciphering style of his novels, recognized as viscerally psychographic. His piercingly soul-searching writing style came into being and flourished roughly a generation prior to Freud.
An outstanding figure of the generation of 1880, Vizyenos skilfully adopted a starkly sincere depiction of the human soul and its workings.
It is only just that Vizyenos is acclaimed to be the master of ethographia, unanimously characterized as “painter of souls”, with his seemingly effortless soul-depiction of his characters, transcending simple ethnography.
Georges Vizyenos was born in Vize, Kirklareli province, on the west coast of the Black Sea. His birthplace and early childhood trauma stigmatized, apart from his own soul and personality, also his writings, which are replete in culminating points of human despair, especially the mother-child bond and the unrequited love of the son who carried the guilt of his own gender.
His mother, a dominant figure in most of his novels, turned her life into a traumatizing effort to be redeemed for her daughter’s accidental death during her sleep, having suffocated her newly-born girl.
That was the incident that inspired one of his autobiographical short stories, namely “My Mother’s Sin”, written in 1883. In his first short story, Vizyenos combines autobiography with an effective use of psychological analysis and suspense; “My Mother’s Sin” is built on the themes of forgiveness, guilt, and atonement, all elements unfolded in an exquisitely confessional manner; the story probes into a peasant woman’s (the writer’s mother figure) heart-wrenching attempt to atone for the accidental death of her only daughter, while leaving her other three male children feeling stranded (Consulate General in New York, 2018).
Vizeynos derives his narrative material from his personal recollections, scenes that are widely retrieved from his homeland, the domestic and communal rituals, his family memories, such as the death of his father and his little sister, folklore, traditions, such as the ritual observance of adoption and experiences recounted and native to his homeland, Vize, such as the matrimonial ceremony.
Vizyenos’ novels are evocative of his early surrounding imagery of the Ottoman-repressed hometown, the vestments of his co-patriots who also happen to constitute the familiar personae of his writings, ascribing to them the nuance of ethographic literature. His particular depiction and the forceful use of language, devoid of melodramatic crescendos-rather unadorned and strong in its simplicity of tragic incidents and acceptances- lead to the conclusion that “the 19th-centrury writer Vizeynos has been credited with establishing literary realism n Greek fiction” (Consulate General in New York, 2018).
Most of his writings are self-narrative, self-investigative in nature.
As concluded by literary criticism, the study of Vizyenos progresses from biography towards his writing, hence, leading to the conclusion that both his life and his works are characterized by otherness (Diakosavva, 2018). Namely, in his narrative Moscov-Selim, Vizeynos, adopting a far-sighted manner, attains to transcend the ethnical and religious divides, which were aflare during his day, and impartially touches the human soul.
According to Diakosavva (2018) it is astounding how, in sight of the era he lived, proactively he adopted a mindet via which he overcomes the prejudice and he highlights the virtue of Moscov-Selim, the Turlish protagonist of his story, and the way he overcomes the prevalent stereotypes about “same-blood friends” and “foreign-blood enemies” (Diakosavva, 2018).
His writings are suffused with otherness:this otherness permeates his personal, turbulent life and his influences, the narrative technique he established and the characters of his stories, but majorly, it is present in his intercultural ethics communicated by his groundbreaking works (Diakosavva, 2018).
Moscov-Selim, written in 1895, has been the last story of Vizyenos, released on instalments in Hestia (the outstanding literary paper of the day), during the writer’s hospitalization in a mental institution, wherein his demise also occurred. Moscov-Selim, the Turkish protagonist, from the provincial aristocracy, is a brisk story, filled with ethnographic and psychobiographic elements, narrating the adventures of the persecuted and tantalized Moscov-Selim.
It cannot be neglected that there is link connecting the authenticity of Vizeynos’ style and his studies in Germany; there, he came into contact with a literary world that was forsaking Romanticism and the sterile Classicism and was now turning inwards, to the soul. This was a defining fact that formulated his prose. It is worth remembering that, in Germany, Vizyenos was a student of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the founder of experimental psychology and father of modern psychology.
The Benefactor, the Studies Abroad
The absence of a fatherly figure is also apparent both from his early childhood and his writings. Vizyenos spent almost the entirety of his lifetime under the wings of eminent personalities though, who generously granted his studies and publications, with the most illustrious of them being his co-patriot and education benefactor, Yeorges Zarifis.
Early in his life, at the age of ten years, Vizyenos was sent by his grandparents to Constantinople to learn the craft of sewing and eventually become a tailor-an uptake he never fulfilled. Vizyenos entered the School of Philosophy in Athens, wherein he would study from 1874 to 1875 and continued his studies in Leipzig. 1881 is the year his dissertation paper was completed, titled “The Relation of Psychology and Pedagogy with the Children’s Play”. In this light, one can conclude that his ease to dig into the intricacies of human psyche might have been scientifically backed.
Vizyenos would oftentimes attract the disdain of the elitist academic circles of Athens, a token of which is disclosed by his correspondence, in 1876, addressed to one of his professors, Ilias Tantalides: He wrote:
“Do not reprimand me for stepping into your clean basement in my muddy tsarouchia; for, as you know, in a village I was born and I have walked a far, really far and muddy road”.
The Mental Health Collapse and The Fall into Oblivion
Stricken by his mental disease and the progressive general paralysis, Vizyenos perished desolate at the premature age of 47 in the Psychiatric Hospital Dromokaition in April 15, 1896.
To this day, his writing is exemplary and included in the curriculum of Literature in junior and senior high-schools.
Poems/Novels: My Mother’s Sin (1883), Between Piraeus and Naples (1883), Who was my Brother’s Murderer (1883), The Consequences of the Old Story, The one and Only Journey of His Life Moscov-Selim (1886), Thracian Tales
*With information from:
Consulate General in New York. (2018). My Mother’s Sin by G. Vizeynos. A world first in English and the United States.
Διακοσάββα, Ε. (2018). Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, ο Συγγραφέας της Ετερότητας. Σαν Σήμερα. Lifo.
Κουζέλη, Λ. (2010). Ο Παιδοψυχολόγος Βιζυηνός. Το Βήμα, Πολιτισμός.
Μπουτάτος, Χ. (2020). Ζαρίφης Γεώργιος, «o Rothschild της Ανατολής».
Παξιμαδάκη, Ε. (2010). Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, Βιογραφία και Εργογραφία.
Πανταζίδου, Ο. (2017). Όταν ο Θρακιώτης Λόγιος Γ. Βιζυηνός Συνάντησε τον Πρωτεργάτη της Ελληνικής Ηθογραφία, Δ. Βικέλα.
Σιδερά, Π. Γ. Βιζυηνού. Το Αμάρτημα της Μητρός μου. Ανάλυση.
The Greek Australian Dialogue Series continues next week with a zoom conference with the Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis.
Hosted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Christos Karras, the Greek Consul General in Sydney, Kostas Bakoyannis will be talking about his plans to maintain Athens as a modern, vibrant metropolis. This includes how the city of Athens takes pride in its ancient inheritance, as much as it takes great pride in its modern self.
The Mayor will articulate his ambitious strategic goals for Athens: one, to reclaim or liberate quality public space; two, to adopt a new model of sustainable mobility and three, to make sure that these goals change without losing the soul of the city. Meaning that he does not want Athens to turn into a theme park.
Mr Bakoyannis will also talk about his plans to tackle pollution, heatwaves, COVID19, homelessness and strategies to make Athens one of the best cities in the world.
Mr Bakoyannis was elected Mayor of Athens in 2019, previously acting as Mayor of Karpenisi and Regional governor of Central Greece, from 2014 to 2019. He studied history and International Relations at Brown University and graduated from Harvard with a Master of Public Administration.
The video conference is open to all Greek Australians who wish to take part, with an opportunity to ask the Mayor a question in the Q&A session.
