Inching toward 4 May restart: Authorities stress vigilance, public queues up for post-lockdown coiffes

By George Gilson

Anxious Greek are champing at the bit to leave their homes and meet the intoxicating scents of spring after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in consultation with a 19-member scientific committee with top doctors and epidemiologists including an award-winning virologist and experts in medical fields linked to the treatment of related diseases mainly of the pulmonary and immune systems.

The prime minister this afternoon addressed the nation and unveiled the stages of the gradual lifting of the lockdown.

Mitsotakis thanked the public for its faithful implementation of lockdown restriction, and Deputy Minister to the PM Akis Skertsos from the General Secretariat for Information stresses that strict recommendation to wear a mask and he extolled the stance of the Orthodox Church of Greece which accepted shutting down Churches even in Holy Weeks but now is demanding an opening of Churches.

The government will first open up churches for individual prayer and services with fewer faithful are scheduled to begin on 1 July.

«The careful opening of the economy is a risk we must take now..Faithful implementation of rules should be universal. Why now? We are in a better state than in February and we saved lives and bought time. ICU beds never over 50 percent of capacity,» Skertsos said.

Horizontal denial of our cicil liberties in the name of the highest good which is life. "This was not at all self-evident [at first]," Skertsos said.
Presumably in order to not give his address a partisan tinge Mitsotakis decided not to set out the economic measures the government has to bolster businesses and labour as part of what Finance Minister Christos Staikouras says is a comprehensive package worth 24bn euros.

The...