How Greece can reopen
The nation does not want to imperil its success in containing the coronavirus
Read the full story at Fortune
In early February, if someone predicted that Greece’s response to the coronavirus pandemic would be stronger than that of Germany, France, the U.K., and Italy, they might have been accused of spending too much time with Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Low expectations seem justified given Greece’s failures during the last decade’s financial crisis.
But facts are facts. As measured by deaths as a proportion of the population, Greece has proved six times as effective as Germany, 27 times as effective as France, and 35 times as effective as the U.K. So far it has lost just 172 people to the pandemic, out of a population of 11 million.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis faced labors that would have scared Hercules. A decade of austerity decimated Greece’s public health system. Greece has the second-highest population of people over 65 in the EU after Italy. About a third of all Greeks live in or near Athens, which is densely urban, famously social, and highly reliant on public transport. Greeks also have a track record of poor governance, public disobedience, and populist protests.
