Greece’s Health Minister, Thanos Plevris, said on Tuesday that the pandemic “conditions allow us to proceed with the suspension of the protection measures from May 1st.” The measures to be lifted are the Covid-Pass, that is the certificate for vaccination and recovery from Covid-19, as well as the mandatory use of masks indoors.
In an interview with Skai TV, Plevris stressed, however, that the certificates will not be abolished but “suspended.”
He added: “That is, the validity of vaccination and disease certificates is suspended – caution, not abolished -, the health protocols for tourist activities are simplified, as well as the tests (testing) on citizens for their entry into various places.”
“Conditions allow us to suspend the measures from May Day. That is, the validity of the vaccination and disease certificates is suspended – attention, it is not abolished -, the health protocols for the tourist activities are simplified, as well as the controls (testing) on the citizens for their entry in various places.” he said.
He added that “the measures will be reviewed in September.”
Plevris said further, that during the festive period of the Greek Orthodox Easter on April 24,, that “restrictions are even milder than last year.”
Meanwhile, the country’s Epidemiologists’ Committee is meeting on Wednesday to reportedly decide on the Covid-Pass and the mandatory use of mask, the measures in the churches during the Holy Week and the Resurrection night and Easter services as well as scrapping self-tests for students.
The use of mask in closed areas and outdoors where there is crowding is considered less a restriction and more a measure for personal protection. The country’s health experts are very reluctant when it comes to lift the mandatory use of mask indoors or in congestion outdoors.
“We can be more cautious in the mask, there is no need to make quick moves,” Plevris said in his interview.
Maintaining the protective mask in all enclosed spaces but also outdoors where there is congestion, eg in the procession of the Epitaph or the Resurrection service and the negative diagnostic tests before people contact vulnerable or elderly people are the two prerequisites that will ensure that Easter days will not trigger a new outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Greece.