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When Pavlos Pandelides realized that the coronavirus pandemic was moving west, he bought a plane ticket and flew from Athens to London. He then drove north to Nottingham to pick up his daughter, a student at the city university, before returning with her the next day to Greece. A fervent admirer of all things British, the businessman had absolutely no doubt that what he was doing was the right thing. “The British are fighters, but I could see that they were underestimating this,” he said.
As Covid-19 razed northern Italy, Boris Johnson continued to falter, and his government showed worrying signs of complacency. Pandelides said there was no time to lose. “It was more than a protective father thing. It was clear that they were about to make a mistake. “
In the weeks preceding the Athens center-right administration’s suspension of air links to the United Kingdom on March 23, demand for airline tickets from Britain’s great Greek community reached unprecedented heights.
The Greeks, like many other Europeans, have been amazed and alarmed by the Johnson government’s handling of the public health emergency. Britain’s chaotic strategy, initial soft touch approach, and high death toll have been met with disbelief in a country that, despite the gutting effects of a debt crisis of nearly a decade, has kept the virus low control.
“Johnson’s handling of the pandemic has been almost Mediterranean-style, cheeky and carefree,” said economic analyst Antonis Papagiannidis. “You can’t help but think that people have been left to rot, that the interests of the economy take precedence over health.”
In the absence of responsible leadership, the British had received conflicting messages, he said. “First, they are told, ‘No problem’; then, ‘Oh, there is a problem.’ That is not a way to treat responsible citizens. They should have been informed of the real risks and allowed them to deal with them with their legendary stiff upper lip. ”
In contrast to the more than 31,000 who have now succumbed to the disease in the UK, Greece has one of the lowest casualty rates on the continent, with 150 deaths and fewer than 2,700 confirmed cases of coronavirus after the early application of hard measures to contain the epidemic. .
It has been a radical change of fortune for a nation more generally associated with civil disobedience and incompetence, both products of a dysfunctional state.
As Britain enters the week without knowing whether its blockade will be significantly reduced, the Greeks are preparing beaches and hotels for a tourist season that they hope to start in July as restrictions gradually ease.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has so far resisted the temptation to gloat. But as epidemiologists continue to talk about a flattening of the curve, polls show support for their government at its highest point. Pride has replaced anger and shame, feelings that prevailed during the roller coaster that was the country’s brush with bankruptcy. Confidence in the capacity of state institutions has also reportedly returned.
According to analysts, the resilience gained during years of crisis may have prepared the Greeks to face the pandemic.
But Mitsotakis, a former banker who took office less than a year ago, is also credited with decisive leadership, shutting down the economy, a body shot when he was just beginning to recover, and deferred medical advice from the start.
The Greek leader understood that the health system affected by the country’s austerity would collapse quickly if the virus were not contained. Infectious disease experts were brought in, taking center stage with daily briefings.
“He is a man of detail who reads every study, every new investigation of any breakthrough in the virus,” said one assistant. “He will find out about the Greeks who hold senior positions in pharmaceutical companies abroad, and communicate with them.”
He added that there was no room for the twist, the show, the arrogance or “none of the feelings of invincibility” that often chain nations with an imperial past. “We were very aware of the limitations of Greece.”
However, Johnson’s illness, his dramatic hospitalization, and his brush with death have resonated in Greece, where many have drawn parallels to the tragedies of ancient writers so loved by the Classicist Prime Minister.
“In some ways, what happened to him smacks of ancient drama,” Papagiannidis said. “There is an element of catharsis, of being purged, that is hard to miss, but what is happening to Britain fills the Greeks with feelings of pain and sadness.”
