Last weekend, the nice weather influenced most Greeks to spend their free time on the beaches. Organized beaches are still closed, but municipal beaches have opened the season. It is evident that preventive rules are already being applied on the beaches, although the government has not officially adopted them. The citizens respected the distance, both on the sand and in the sea.
What worries tourists the most, who are expected to arrive in Greece in early July, is health safety on the beach. Experts in Greece have been talking about it in recent days, and they agree that swimming in the sea is safe, and there is no possibility of transmitting coronavirus that way. On the beaches, certain rules of distance and disinfection will apply, and the transmission of the virus via sand is almost impossible because the virus is not maintained at such high temperatures that it retains sand (only in cases where someone coughs directly into the sand and the person touches the sand at the same time).
Regarding the arrival of foreign tourists and the conditions under which they will be able to enter and spend their vacation, the Minister of Tourism Haris Teocharis announced several conditions for entering and leaving the country, and they are:
• A passenger arriving by plane will have to show a negative test on COVID 19 on boarding (this will almost certainly apply to those arriving by car)
• The planes will be filled, so that flight tickets stay unchanged and stable
• For flights up to 4 hours, passengers will not be served food, but only packaged and tested snacks
• Tourists will be able to leave the country without control, in order to avoid the risk of keeping quarantined passengers in Greece.
• In each tourist place, the Ministry of Tourism will have a corona quarantine unit, to accommodate potentially ill people
• Each hotel, or other type of accommodation unit, will be obliged to hire a doctor who will stay in that unit, or who will determine by phone whether the tourist should be tested at the Crown. Test results will have to be published within 6 hours at the latest. If it is determined that the person is positive, he will be placed in quarantine, ie. to the nearest isolation in that place.
What worries many potential tourists is the price of the test, but the Greek minister hopes that by the beginning of the season there will be mass production of quick tests, which would be available to everyone (and which would eventually be done in Greece, before tourists return to their country) .
Note: It should be noted that an agreement between neighboring countries (transit countries) with which Greece borders has not yet been made. Unfortunately, we will have to wait to get official information.