England and Scotland’s green list of countries should include some of Greece’s islands, the country’s tourism minister Haris Theoharis has said [VIDEO]
While he recognised that governments have to make decisions on their own terms, he said they could have taken a regional approach to allow for quarantine-free travel to islands where coronavirus cases are lower.
Countries have been divided into three categories – green amber and red. The number of Covid-19 cases in each country and their vaccine rollout success partly determine their status on the list.
Wales and Northern Ireland have not yet announced plans to restart foreign holidays.
Dear Tourist,
Greetings from sunny Greece,
I am writing this note to ask you for a favor that at the same time could be a lifesaver for you.
I would like to ask you not to come to my country in the summer of 2021. Stay away from Greece for two reasons:
The first is to keep you and your family safe.
The second reason is to keep our families safe.
I will explain the reasons: My country’s National Health System cannot cope with other patients. If you get sick in Greece and need to be hospitalized and especially intubated, you will have little chance of surviving.
In my country you have many chances to catch the virus because most Greeks do not comply with the pandemic guidelines, they do not follow the government’s instructions, even though the government makes ambitious efforts to make them abide by the rules.
Greeks consider it “revolutionary” to gather in parks at night, drink beers and pee on windowsills.
They also consider it revolutionary to load their families in the cars and go out in the country against the bans. Here they meet other families of friends and drink and eat together, dance and party without adhering to the rules of self-protection.
The situation in my country is out of control, the moment that the picture of vaccines in the world is not clear. We do not yet know, for how long vaccines protect us, if they protect us from dangerous mutations such as the South African mutation and the dangerous Indian mutation.
Even Israel, a world champion in vaccinations, has not been tested in the real world yet.
Do not forget that since March 2020, Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport has been hermetically sealed for those who do not have an Israeli passport. The fact that Israel has been a sealed state for a year is the secret of its success more than vaccines in our opinion.
The same is true for Australia and New Zealand. These countries have few cases because they remain hermetically sealed. This, against a pandemic that according to Bloomberg this week has caused 5,200,000 more new cases since the beginning of the hell of 3,000,000 dead, reveals that despite the vaccinations we have anything but defeated the virus. For these reasons we invite you not to risk your life coming to Greece. Do not risk our lives either.
My country is already in the red on the Forbes map.
We invite you to choose to stay away from Greece in the summer of 2021 so that both you and we Greeks can have the opportunity to live together in Greece many beautiful summers in the future.
The Clockwork Orange Times Team
