Greek PM criticised for attending lunch that breached COVID-19 restrictions

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is being criticised for attending a meal that exceeded the limits on gatherings on the very day health restrictions had been tightened to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus. According to The Guardian, Mitsotakis was visiting the far-flung Aegean island and islets in the adjacent archipelago to meet medical staff and witness the country’s vaccination programme first hand. However, what had been a successful trip was quickly overshadowed by the news that he and his entourage were enjoying lunch on the terrace of the harbour-front home of an MP in Ikaria.  

Local media reports had described the leader’s group as being far in excess of the official limit on the number of people allowed to congregate at any one time. Mitsotakis had flouted a cardinal rule in the government’s arsenal of curbs against the pandemic during a meal at the home of New Democracy MP Christodoulos Stefanidis. Following the news, Nasos Iliopoulos, the spokesman for the main opposition party, Syriza, criticised the Greek leader and said that he ought to say a “very big sorry to the Greek people”. He added that it’s even worse when it has happened on the day that the government asked citizens to remain indoors from 6pm. 

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‘Inaccurate and divisive’ 

MP Stefanidis, on the other hand, acknowledged that a crowd had spontaneously congregated outside the building to the PM “up close” but insisted that during the brief time people were inside his home health protocols were upheld. He said that number of people around each table was strictly limited with mask-wearing studiously observed in between. Further, Stefanidis apologised and added that the images and conditions, beyond the space where the PM and where people had converged spontaneously to see him up close, were not correct. 

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Responding to the criticism, the government’s spokesman Christos Tarantilis even criticised the opposition for suggesting that a “fiesta” had taken place in Ikaria in which the Greek PM had participated, calling the claims inaccurate and divisive. However, he also added that in the PM’s future tours every possible care will be taken so that the wrong image is not created. 

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Greece has over 163,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 6,000 deaths. With daily coronavirus diagnoses back in quadruple digits as far mount about a third wave of the pandemic, lockdown measures were reinforced on February 6 with a nightly curfew brought forward to 6pm from 9pm. 

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