Greek prime minister’s hot, smoldering vaccine pose breaks the internet
“We need to talk about the Greek PM’s vaccine pose,” BBC News’ Dino Sofos tweeted on Jan. 18.
Yes we do!
Like many world leaders, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has gotten his COVID-19 vaccine and made it public with a photo. Except that, unlike others, his pose is sizzling hot with his blue shirt peeled off, exposing half of his tanned and firm chest and torso, like a Greek god deliberating nymphs on a river.
It was enough to send the internet into frenzy. We also need another shot of ouzo.
Never have inoculations become public celebrations as we are seeing now. From the first person vaccinated in the UK (a 90-year-old grandmother), to all countries scrambling to order vaccines from several manufacturers, we are beginning to see light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. After a year of battering by COVID-19, the world now has 96 million cases and 2 million deaths.
Mitsotakis’ inoculation is the picture we didn’t think we needed. But the 53-year-old prime minister probably knew that. He didn’t needs to take his shirt off to get jabbed; he could have simply rolled up his sleeve—but where’s the fun in that?
This is Mitsotakis’ second dose (he was wearing a polo shirt during the first) and he probably thought, “Oh what the hell, let’s give the internet something to talk about.” The Greek PM is wearing a pendant, possibly a crucifix, which observers say he never takes off. Oh, if only he took the rest of his shirt off, we could have been more sure.
His vaccine photo practically overshadowed Russian President Valdimir Putin’s video dipping into icy waters as he marked Orthodox Epiphany yesterday.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis became prime minister of Greece in July 2019. He is president of the political party New Democracy since 2016. His elected career began in 2004 when he was elected to the Hellenic Parliament for the Athens B Constituency.
He is the son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis, who headed Greece from 1990 to 1993. His mother Marika was also a prominent politician. He is married to investment banker Mareva Grabowski and they have three children.
In 1968, his family was placed under house arrest by the military junta, which wrested control from the democratic government. Mitsotakis would later describe the first six months of his life as “political imprisonment.”
When he was one year old, the family escaped to Turkey and years later to Paris. The Mitsotakis family returned to Greece in 1974 after democracy was restored.
After graduating from Athens College in 1986, he went to Harvard University where he earned a degree in social studies, then Stanford University for his master’s in international policy. He went back to Harvard from 1993 to 1995, this time for his MBA.
All this educational achievements are making the PM hotter in our eyes.
