Tourism in Greece

The National Organization for Public Health (EODY) is launching on Friday (June 5) a new round of testing on the residents of 16 small islands of the Aegean, ahead of the opening to foreign tourists in mid-June.

Aegean Airlines will reintroduce international flights and services to all Greek airports as of June 15, as part of the gradual easing of measures introduced during the coronavirus pandemic, the company said on Wednesday.

A driver of a tanker truck died on Wednesday after losing control of his vehicle and crashing into a concrete divider on the Thessaloniki-Athens highway near Pieria in northern Greece.

Despite the declining course of the coronavirus epidemic, the islands continue to boost their levels of preparedness in view of the tourist season which begins formally on June 15.

Greece lifted lockdown restrictions Monday for hotels, open-air cinemas, golf courses and public swimming pools as the country ramped up preparations for the crucial summer tourism season to start in two weeks. Primary school children also returned to class.

Sections of 24 blocks outlined in the Turkish Government Gazette on May 30 stemming from the contentious maritime borders agreement signed last November between Turkey and the Tripoli-based government in Libya come within or beyond 6 nautical miles of the coasts of eastern Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes, and overlap the Greek continental shelf.

On a visit on Thursday to a school in the town of Glafki in Xanthi, in the northern region of Thrace, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou was given a bouquet of flowers by a student in traditional dress.

Four dinghies took four teams of doctors and nurses to Milos, Kimolos, Folegandros and Sikonos, covering more than 200 nautical miles in 31 hours, and collected about 200 samples as part of an initiative to conduct coronavirus tests and to ascertain the health infrasture needs of remote islands.

Doctors, nurses and paramedics on the Greek islands will be receiving special training geared at dealing with coronavirus-related emergencies ahead of the relaunch of the tourism season next month.

The Regional Authority of the Northern Aegean said on Monday that it was taking legal action against a nongovernment organization called Moria Corona Awareness Team after it referred to "the Greek side of the island" of Lesvos in a post on its Facebook page last Thursday, thereby implying that there is a non-Greek side of the island.