Update – 11/05/2021
May 11, 2021
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As of the latest update by the Greek authorities, the total number of confirmed Covid-19 diagnosed cases in Greece is 363,904. 60 new deaths were reported raising the total number to 11,089. The number of patients treated in intensive care units is currently 732. 1,904 new cases were announced yesterday in Greece. 802 of the new cases were found in the Attica region and 184 new cases in the Thessaloniki region.
On Monday, Greece reopened schools and courtrooms for in-person attendance following months of closures due to the country’s coronavirus lockdown.
Primary and middle schools welcomed back students following the opening of high schools on April 12th. Courts also reopened for many of their activities, with reasonable restrictions in order to safeguard people from the spread of the coronavirus.
All school grades are now open, and all must follow the regulations set out by the government to keep staff and students safe. These include mandatory temperature checks as students enter school buildings, as well as increased sanitation throughout schools. The school grades that started in-person operation on Monday also have to take part in Greece’s self-testing program, which has already been in place in high schools. Self-testing kits can be obtained by those who are eligible for them at any pharmacy for free. The test is given upon presentation of a valid AMKA social security number of either the child or the parent of the child.
Together with the self test kit, recipients are given written instructions on how to correctly collect their sample. Test results must be declared up to 24 hours before attending classes. To do so, students and teachers need to upload their test results to an online platform.
The registration of self tests per AMKA is done in real time to avoid the phenomenon of multiple tests being handed out by different pharmacies to the same person.
Self tests are rapidly detectable nasal-swab tests (using a nasal instead of nasopharyngeal / oral pharyngeal sample), performed at home; they do not require the supervision of a health professional.
Self-testing is expected to be performed twice weekly by all students and staff in order to keep them safe from the coronavirus.
SKAI TV, one of the largest channels in Greece, reported that nearly 3,000 pupils and teachers tested positive for the virus prior to schools opening on Monday.
Courts open for specific functions
Courts in Greece face a range of limitations as they restart in-person operations once again. Civil courts have opened for all cases, whereas criminal courts have limited the cases they can hear to those in which the defendant is already in custody or cases which are in danger of reaching the statute of limitations.
Restrictions have also been placed on the number of people allowed in any single courtroom; however this regulation has been difficult to follow in cases involving multiple defendants.
Greece’s reopening of schools and courtrooms is part of a larger plan as Greece reopens for tourism on the 15th. Restaurants and bars have been open in the country since May 3, and there is a plan for the staggered reopening of cultural venues such as museums, theaters and cinemas.
“Greece is gradually and carefully returning to normalcy, along with the rapid expansion of (its) vaccination program,” President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou said on Monday. In her opening address to the Delphi Economic Forum (DEF), she pointed out that this year’s forum was dedicated to the bicentennial of the 1821 Greek Revolution, which led to the foundation of the modern Greek state.
The Forum was not being held in its “natural surroundings,” as it usually is, in Delphi, but in a hybrid fashion due to the pandemic, with some events held online but also a significant number of speakers attending in person.
“This, therefore, marks the start of the exit from conditions of forced restriction imposed by the pandemic,” Sakellaropoulou noted.
She remarked that the year was a double anniversary for Greece, which was not only celebrating the second century of its independence but also its fourth decade as a member of the European Union, which it joined in 1981.
“These two anniversaries come together to form a single historical narrative,” she added.
Referring to the narrative of modern, European Greece, which inspired younger generations of philhellenes to link their lives to Greece and to love what the country stood for, she said that Greece was a nation devoted to international legality and the works of peace; it had gone through a great deal but had always “stood on the right side of history.
“A robust, liberal democracy that has gone through terrible crises but withstood and emerged even stronger. An economy that was greatly tested but adapted, reformed and is making a leap to a digital and green transition, aspiring to become an international destination for investments,” Sakellaropoulou said.
In more detail, the 1,904 new cases detected per Regional Unit:
