Greece: No need for quarantine for tourists with Covid, citizens stay at home

Tourists in Greece infected with the coronavirus will not be subject to a five-day quarantine. The restriction applies to citizens who fall ill and stay at their place of residence, according to a joint decision of the ministries, published on Wednesday in the official gazette.

The decision, published by the Ministries of Health, Tourism and Finance on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, comes at a time when the tourist season for both locals and foreigners has long begun.

According to the guidelines of the ministries on “special medical protocols regarding measures against Covid-19 for tourism enterprises […]there will be no quarantine rooms for tourists in the summer of 2022.”

While the 5-day isolation at home remains mandatory for residents of the country, tourists are “other” and will remain in quarantine only if they wish, and only for the number of days that they pre-paid for staying at a hotel or other facilities.

According to the magazine protagon.gr5-day quarantine for tourists just “recommended”, not required…

Subsequently, as long as they are infected and test positive for the coronavirus, tourists will be able to travel by ship, plane or any other means simply by using a high protection mask (FFP2 or KN95).

“There was a lot of discussion about how to deal with outbreaks in tourist accommodations, and we decided to apply what is applicable to the rest of the Mediterranean countries because in most of the Nordic countries there are no measures at all to protect against coronavirus,” Christos Hatzichristodoulou said. , Professor of Hygiene and Epidemiology at the Medical School of the University of Thessaly.

All of this means that in practice, if someone booked four days at a hotel and tested positive for Covid-19 on the second day, they would be in isolation. [рекомендуется!] in your room for the remaining two days of your booked stay.

Once completed, he is free to leave and travel freely while still testing positive for the virus. His only obligation is to wear a high-protection mask until he returns home.

“In the event that someone has serious symptoms, the accommodation management must report this to the EKAB ambulance service, which is responsible for transferring the infected to a medical facility specialized in patients with Covid infection. Transportation can be carried out as an ambulance , and by water or air transport,” the government said.

However, it is clear that if the infected are not going to travel – in the case of foreign tourists to their homeland or local tourists [из Греции] to their place of residence, they must remain in isolation in their room for all the days for which they have paid.

This does not mean that just because isolation is recommended and not mandatory, the infected will walk around the islands. “This wording exists so that they can leave and not be stuck in a strange place,” Hatsihristodoulou explained. protagon.gr .

Gradually it becomes clear why EODY stops publishing daily coronavirus bulletin: “We want tourism to flourish, it’s the only way to generate income. We need tourists and really only their money, and we don’t want to spend a single cent on quarantine rooms on the islands.”

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