The picturesque seaside village Avlemonas on Kythera island
The inhabitants of around 40 Greek islands are being vaccinated against Covid-19 and Britons longing for a summer holiday under the Aegean sun can start booking now, the country’s tourism minister told The Telegraph.
The islands, scattered around the Aegean and Ionian seas, all have a population of less than 1,000 people, making mass vaccination relatively easy.
They include Halki, near Rhodes, Kastellorizo, which lies barely a mile off the Turkish coast, Meganisi in the Ionian Sea and Kythira in the Peloponnese.
For lockdown-weary Britons dreaming of grilled octopus, dishes of taramasalata and all the other delights that a Hellenic summer holiday can offer, it is an encouraging step as Greece prepares to open up for what it hopes will be a busy tourism season.
A pebble beach on the island of Kythera
Credit: Alamy
Once the country’s tiniest islands have been vaccinated, larger destinations such as Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu will be targeted.
“If you’re going to send a medical team to an island with a small population, it makes sense to vaccinate not just the elderly and vulnerable, but everyone,” said Harry Theoharis, the Greek tourism minister.
“We’re vaccinating everyone on islands that have a population of less than 1,000 inhabitants.”
Greece hit the one million vaccination mark this week, with 355,000 people now having received both doses – still a low percentage of the country’s 11 million population.
The priority until now has been to give the vaccine to the elderly and the most vulnerable, including those with underlying medical conditions.
But the programme will soon broaden out. “It is a priority to vaccinate the tourist islands,” the minister said. “We want to vaccinate people working in the tourism sector, from hotel staff and waiters to tourist guides and drivers.”
The tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo lies close to the Turkish coast
Credit: AFP
With many EU countries complaining of a shortfall in supply from pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the pace of progress “depends on how many vaccines we receive in a couple of months’ time,” he said.
For Britons to enter Greece this summer, they will need one of three things: either a certificate showing they have been vaccinated, proof that they have antibodies against the virus or a test to show they are negative.
“For the time being, it has to be a PCR test but by the time we open an antigen (rapid) test should be sufficient,” Mr Theoharis said.
“My advice to British tourists, and my promise, is that we will open up to our beloved friends from the UK. We will try to make it as smooth and hassle-free as possible. They can book flights and start choosing the places where they want to go.”
Despite the minister’s optimism, the Covid-19 situation in Greece is not good. The number of new cases is on the rise. On Wednesday, 2,700 new cases were recorded – the highest daily number so far this year.
On Thursday, there were another 2,200 new cases, along with 35 deaths. It is thought the more contagious British variant of the virus is to blame.
One of the finest beaches on the island of Kythira
Credit: Alamy
Some popular tourist islands are currently considered to be at particularly high risk, including Rhodes, Evia, Lefkada and Samos.
“We do have resurgent numbers but there are not as many deaths because the vaccine is starting to bite,” the minister said.
“In November, during the second wave, we had around 3,000 cases and about 125 deaths a day. Now we are seeing around 2,500 new cases each day but only about 25 to 30 deaths. We are beginning to see that the strategy is working and I don’t see why it won’t continue to work.”
Announcing on Thursday the administering of one million doses, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister, said: “Every week that passes, we are building the wall of immunity that will allow us to leave behind this ordeal.” He said Greece was “at the beginning of the end” of the pandemic.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece's prime minister, during a news conference on the island of Santorini last June
Credit: Bloomberg
Mr Mitsotakis was one of the first European leaders to propose the idea of coronavirus passports as a way of allowing people to travel again.
Greece is heavily reliant on tourism, with its total contribution to the country’s GDP estimated to be as high as 25 per cent.
Last year, tourism revenues were nearly 80 per cent down compared to the 2019 season, amounting to a loss of €14 billion.
On Kastellorizo, a tiny island that lies just off the coast of Turkey, vaccination of the whole population is due to be completed by mid-March.
“We already feel relieved,” Michael-Stratos Amygdalos, the deputy mayor, told The Telegraph. “Before, we lived in anxiety and agony”.
Kastellorizo has only had one Covid-19 case, detected in a soldier stationed on the island.
But for such a remote location, which does not have a hospital, vaccination is vital, particularly with the prospect of tourists arriving in the summer.
An elderly resident of Thymena receiving an injection during a visit by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
Credit: DIMITRIS PAPAMITSOS/GREEK PM OFFICE/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Greece’s vaccination roll-out has been dogged by supply problems, as well as allegations of nepotism.
Last week, the deputy mayor of Thessaloniki and the head of the city council were dismissed after allegedly arranging for their families to be vaccinated, using shots that were meant for the elderly and people with disabilities.
Despite the recent surge in cases, particularly in big cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki, some islanders are chafing under Greece’s months-long lockdown.
The island of Amorgos, in the Cyclades, has had no recorded cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
Yet schools and shops are closed, daily curfews are in place and residents are obliged to wear masks in outside spaces.
“We have zero cases. Why is the high school not open?” said Maria Nomikou, who runs a bar on the island, which is famous as the setting for the Luc Besson film The Big Blue about the rivalry between two champion free divers.
The government came under fire last year for botching the opening up of tourism during the summer.
At the peak of the holiday season, restrictive measures came into place in many island destinations, forcing visitors to leave or cancel their holidays.
The Greek government was later accused by doctors and opposition politicians of fudging coronavirus numbers, endangering the health of both islanders and tourists.
The government was also accused of not properly testing visitors who flew into Greece and of failing to institute health measures that could have curtailed the spread of the virus.
The question of whether opening up tourism under these conditions is what led to the resurgence of Covid-19 in the autumn, a second wave that is still continuing, has been the topic of intense debate between the government, medical professionals and opposition parties.
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