Greece’s health authorities have been set on alert and politicians threaten with “local lockdown” in islands and touristic areas, should crowding phenomena like the one at a Mykonos beach bar occur again.
Government spokesman, Stelios Petsas, said on Monday that there is a plan for a local lockdown in case of increased coronavirus cases in any structure, school or entire geographical areas, such as prefectures or islands.
The government’s main concern is the public health, Petsas said stressing that rules must be observed.
It will be “our absolute disaster, if we consider that the virus is over,” he warned.
Referring to Greece’s immediate response after 12 passengers on a Qatar Arilines flights were tested positive, Petsas said “we will do the same locally if we see a problem somewhere, whether it’s in a neighborhood or a health facility or a school. It may even concern a geographical area, an island or a prefecture. Everything is on the table. The coronavirus has not left. We are not relaxing.”
Angered about the crowding at the beach bar was also the head of Civil Protection, Nikos Hardalias.
“The opening of economy is done with rules, these rules are non-negotiable,” health protocoals and rules should be implemented and followed,” he said.
He added that “there can be no areas that seem outlawed or out of order. This is not allowed, there is no way we can make any discounts on public health and the most important thing is that we all need to realize that the laws, the rules, the instructions are for all of us to follow.”
“For all of us to follow” orlockdown?
Government officials, entrepreneurs, members of the Church and faithful nicely crowded without masks and distance of 1.5 in Piraeus on Monday to reveal the statue of Konstantinos Palaiologos, the last reigning Byzantine Emperor.
The statue was donated by the Chamber of Commerce in Piraeus “for the 200 years from the Greek Revolution of 1821,” Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis wrote on his twitter account.
Ο Υπουργός κ. Άδωνις Γεωργιάδης εκπροσώπησε την Κυβέρνηση στα Αποκαλυπτήρια του ανδριάντα του Κων/νου Παλαιολόγου, στην Αγία Τριάδα Πειραιώς, δωρεά του Εμπορικού και Βιομηχανικού Επιμελητηρίου Πειραιώς και του Προέδρου του @vkorkidis για τα 200 χρόνια από την Επανάσταση του 1821. pic.twitter.com/whwPNpBBX9
— Υπουργείο Ανάπτυξης και Επενδύσεων (@MinDevGR) June 8, 2020
PS As we try to find out why dignitaries and the faithful are allowed to crowd but not youngster at beach bars, we also struggle to understand the link between the Greek Revolution and Paliologos who died in the battlefield during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
That’s right! Hadn’t it be for Palaiologos, Greece wouldn’t have been under Ottoman occupation for 400 years and there would have been no reason for a Revolution.
