Coronavirus Greece: UPD List of shops & services to remain open as of Mar 18

Greece will close all commercial shops as of Wednesday, March 18, 2020, as a measure to prevent further spread of coronavirus. Excepted from the closure are largely: supermarkets, pharmacies, fuel stations, banks and other services like courier services and several smaller facilities linked to the food supply.

Head of Civil Protection Nikos Hardalias listed shops and services to remain open during a press conference at 6 o’ clock Monday afternoon.

Open after March 18 will remain:

Supermarkets* – expanded working hours 7am-10pm, also on Sundays (for deliveries).

Pharmacies

Fuel stations

Banks

Bakeries & Patisseries

Shops linked to food supplies such as Butcher’s, Groceries, etc

Municipality open markets (Laiki) – will sell only food products not kitchenware and clothes

Mini Markets & Kiosks (Periptera)

Pet shops – pet or veterinary medicines and food stores

Gastronomy delivery (delivery, take away, room service_

Courier companies to facilitate e-shopping

Repair shops for vehicles, motorcycles and bicycles

Shops for repairs such as Optics, Hearing devices, disability and orthopedics. medical and industrial gases and machinery

Telecommunication shops, ie Mobile Phones etc

Laundries

Shops of electricity and gas companies

Commercial shops within ports and airports

Funeral Services

Retailers can carry out online orders delivered to customer’s address

Also Post Office are open; restrictions to number of customers inside and distance of 2 meters.

*Controlled entrance of customers in supermarkets as of March 16.

Commercial shops will be closed following a request by the relevant Association as  retail owners saw drastic decrease of revenues since the coronavirus outbreak.

But there was also another reason: A friend who owns a clothes shop in an Athens suburb complained that moms with kids kept visiting the shop, despite official recommendations to stay home. Even if they would hardly buy anything “they have certainly spread the virus.”  She added “we keep disinfecting surfaces and everything they touch but we cannot control them.”

Greece has taken a series of measures to contain the spread of the virus but thousands of Greeks have been constantly defying them.

Among the measures are restrictions in road, air- and sea-traffic with neighboring countries and order as of March 16 that anyone who arrives form abroad will be placed in quarantine for 14 days.

On Monday the total number of inflections increased to 352 after 21 new confirmed cases.

Two villages in northern Greece have been placed in quarantine with the majority of mostly elderly residents to be infected with the coronavirus.