Infectious disease specialists appear to be negative about the opening of shopping malls, despite pressure from the Ministry of Development to further relax the measures in retail.
The epidemiologists’ Committee advising the Greek government has met on Friday morning to evaluate the latest data on the curse of the pandemic.
However, the high number of infection cases in combination with the immense pressure on the hospitals where intubated patients reached record 891 on Thursday, does not allow them to give the “green light” for further relaxation in the retail sector, media report.
The health experts consider it as necessary that consumers continue to do their shopping in retail stores with the systems of click-away and click-inside and for a duration of 3 hours once a day.
The Development Minister reportedly also wanted to relax the click-away and click-inside systems and the cosnumers would be free to go to any shop without previous appointment.
The experts are reportedly negative also regarding the re-opening of beauty salons.
The final decision relays on the government and some media report that the government has accepted the experts’ recommendations.
Another issue of concern to experts is the relaxation of measures during the Easter period, with thousands of Greeks eager to travel to the countryside and the Church to want more faithful to attend services during the Holy Week and the Resurrection Day.
Given the current situation, epidemiologists fear that allowing travel to regional units other than of the main residence will bring further spread of the coronavirus to the population of villages.
However, experts also seem to have second thoughts regarding the relaxation of the measures during the Easter period. Infectious disease specialists are concerned that the opening to the villages will bring further spread of the coronavirus.
Anyway, the experts are to meet again on these issues next week.
Why 3 hours!. Many of us have not been able to shop at all since last November. For those of us outside of the cities, it is a 45-60 minute drive to our main retail centre. By the time we have found parking space, we have about one hour of shopping before we have to head back to the car and to our homes. Factor in queues, etc., and you can, at best, only get to a coupe of shops. Result – we now have to go in to town on another day (or two) to complete our shopping.