Tag: lockdown

Simply Red?

An update on yesterday’s blog posting as the rules changed again after publication.

After Wednesday evening’s shock announcement that Symi, Tilos, Halki and Kastellorizon were going to be under the same Deep Red restrictions as Rhodes, by virture of being part of the same municipality, Symi parents received messages from the schools to say that their children had to revert to on line home learning with immediate effect. The Mayors of Tilos and Kastellorizon hit the phones to high places, pointing out that in the case of their particular islands their populations had already received their first vaccinations and various mixed messages were received by local authorities seeking clarification. By late morning on Thursday it was confirmed that while Rhodes is to go under the same Deep Red restrictions, Symi, Kastellorizon, Tilos and Halki were now exempt.

As I understand it, this means that our curfew remains at 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and the primary school children can go back to school. Other restrictions, however, remain in place as the amendments to movement regulations are countrywide, regardless of which shade of red one is on the map.

This could, of course, all be different by tomorrow…

Deep Red Sends Symiots Early to Bed

The latest lockdown news from Symi as new restrictions are implemented.

Greece has been in a country wide lockdown since 7 November 2020 in an effort to control the spread of the ubiquitous Covid-19 virus. Every time it looks as though the situation is under control it surges again, particularly in Attica where the UK strain of the virus is gaining hold and ICU beds are full. Meanwhile the number of cases in Rhodes has risen sharply in the last two weeks, also causing concern. Yesterday afternoon the government announced that the whole country was going into a more restricted lockdown but areas designated Deep Red would have even stricter measures. As Symi falls under Rhodes, even though we have yet to have any cases on the island, we too are now Deep Red.

On Symi the main impacts are that the schools have closed again with effect for today and the curfew now starts at 19.00 instead of 21.00 and continues until 05.00. Shops are closed apart from food and essentials and this has to be done locally, with a time limit of 2 hours from getting the permission code. We are no longer allowed to drive to places to start our daily exercise but must do it entirely on foot or bicycle. No drives into the countryside to then walk to mountain monasteries. SMS code 4, to render assistance to the elderly and vulnerable, is to be more closely monitored and the police may actually accompany you to make sure that you are indeed taking essentials to someone in need and not using this as a cover for attending an illegal birthday party or other furtive social event. No doubt more information will emerge in the media in due course.

On the vaccination front, Symi town hall has just put out an announcement asking everyone over 60 to register for the vaccination. The over 80s and over 75s have been done, as have the front line medical workers. Apparently many of the locals are reluctant to be vaccinated, on the grounds that only tourists who have been vaccinated are likely to be allowed onto the island anyway so why should they? The expat community, on the other hand, remember how polio vaccinations – and others – changed lives and are not so flippant. When I went down to the town hall yesterday, the only people I saw registering were all British residents. Hopefully attitudes will change as results are seen in the rate of hospitalisations as otherwise it is going to be another very long year.

Sunday is 7 March, Dodecanese Day, the day when the Dodecanese Islands became part of the modern state of Greece in 1947. For the second year running there will be no parades or festivities. The 25 March should be an even bigger holiday in Greece this year, celebrating the bicentennary of the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans but that too is being toned down.

The only thing running to plan at the moment is spring. The days are getting longer and warmer. The lambs are gambolling, the birds twittering, the flowers opening before our eyes. The air is scented with hawthorn, citrus blossom and wild cyclamens. The trees are humming with bees. We have not had any rain since 21 February and there is none showing up on the long range forecast.

A strong earthquake hit central Greece yesterday, causing widespread damage to buildings. You can read more about this here.

Dodecanese Seaways have launched a new service in conjunction with a supermarket chain on Rhodes, enabling people in Symi, Halki, Tilos and Nissyros to order their groceries on line and have them delivered to the boat. The boats are well equipped with freezer and fridge storage as they already bring perishable supplies to supermarkets and other businesses along their routes. Apparently on Symi the goods will then be delivered to home addresses. For the other three islands, customers will have to come down to the boat to fetch their shopping. It will be interesting to see how this works in practice and how many people will take it up. Looking at the website, there did not seem to be anything in particular listed that would be significantly cheaper than on Symi or not normally available here in some form or another but I know from visiting the other three islands, which have tiny populations, that they have very limited grocery shopping facilities. We shall see.

Symi’s Second Lockdown

Here we are again, nearly four weeks into Greece’s second full lockdown. While Symi pottered along quietly into November with a few lingering tourists enjoying some late sunshine, things were escalating rapidly in northern Greece, particularly in Greece’s second city, Thessalonica, and Athens wasn’t looking too good either, so the government took the step virtually over night of shutting the country down. The announcement was made on the afternoon of Thursday 5 November that the lockdown would come into effect from 6 a.m. on Saturday 7 November.

Symi regulars will know that the weekend of 7-8 November was the Panormitis Festival and the Feast of St Michael. Pilgrims and hawkers had already started to arrive – in a socially distanced sort of way, of course. They were all instructed to return from whence they came. The Blue Star on Friday 6 November had a Dunkirk air about it as this was the last boat out before the lockdown. Tourists rescheduled flights, home owners had to make hasty decisions as to whether to dash for home now or take a chance that they might be stuck for an indefinite period of time, Symiots took advantage of the last opportunity to go to Rhodes to do shopping and essential business before everything closed down.

Dodecanese Seaways had cancelled all their scheduled routes for the Saturday and Sunday, which had been intended to shuttle people from Rhodes to Symi for the festival and ferry travel from the Monday onwards would be under the lockdown protocols, involving a lot more paperwork. Travel between prefectures and regions is also forbidden under the lockdown except for a very narrow range of reasons. Apart from medical appointments there is no passenger movement between the islands and Symi really is very isolated now. Dodecanese Seaways comes through twice a week to bring supplies and courier items, as does the Blue Star so there is no shortage of food or medicines. Normally this is a busy time on the boats with everyone going over to Rhodes to do Christmas shopping.

Once again a permit and SMS system has been imposed. Basically you can only be outside your home if you have Document A which is to prove that you are going to and from work or B, either a document or an SMS allowing you to be out for a very limited range of reasons. Anyone going out must have either the form or the reciprocal SMS, passport or ID and a mask. Here on Symi police checks have been fairly relaxed and random – but there, nevertheless. In the towns and cities, however, the rules are more stringently imposed and fines are steep.

Initially the lockdown was to be until 30 November 2020. Unfortunately with the continuing high death rate, high number of intubations and high number of new cases on the mainland the lockdown has officially been extended to 7 December and at time to writing we are awaiting an announcement if this will be extended further, to 14 or 21 December. Whichever way it goes, it is going to be a low key Christmas in Greece.

Speaking of Christmas, the municipal workers have been busy and the Symi Christmas lights started to go up earlier than usual this year, at the start of the lockdown. We have a curfew from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. but if we look out of our windows we have sparkly lights to cheer us up.

The weather on Symi remained mild and sunny well into November with rare rainy days and thunderstorms. That is now changing to more frequent wet weather and temperatures are now around 15 degrees in the day, dropping to about 10 at night. Northern parts of Greece and high lying areas have already had snow and frosts while we are still enjoying the Symi ‘second spring’.