After months of lockdown, retail shops in Greece will open on Monday, April 5, Deputy Minister for Civil Protection Nikos Chardalias announced on Wednesday.

Customers — with appointments — will be permitted to do their shopping under extremely strict anti-virus measures, Chardalias stated. Large super-stores and malls will not be open at all, however.

Rather than sending a text message to the government’s toll free number 13033, used for all other movements under lockdown, Greeks will have to send a message to the number 13032 to go shopping.

Shoppers can either shop with “click-away,” or curbside pickup, or with “click in shop,” which involves making purchases inside of the store. Both require a prior appointment to shop.

Greeks can send only one message to shop each day, and they can only make their purchases for three hours.

In order to maintain social distancing, stores will be allowed to host one customer per 25 square meters (269 square feet), and a maximum of 20 shoppers in total.

Additionally, Greeks will now be permitted to leave their municipality — but not their regional unit — over the weekends. During the week, they must stay inside the municipality where their residence is located.

Vasilis Kikilias, Greek Minister of Health, noted that Greek hospitals are currently under an extreme amount of pressure due to the recent spike in cases and intubations in the country, despite lockdown.

In order to cope with the increased amount of coronavirus patients that require intubation and hospitalization in the country, Kikilias announced that the entirety of Thriasio Hospital will be used exclusively for those with the coronavirus.

This will add hundreds of much-needed hospital beds as well as spots in ICUs for Covid-19 patients in Greece.

Greece identified a total of 3,616 cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday.

The current figure marks 724 fewer instances of Covid-19 than the 4,340 cases diagnosed in Greece on Monday, which was the highest number of cases recorded in one day in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.

The total number of patients being treated with intubation, which involves placing a tube down a patient’s throat to assist breathing, has reached 739 in Greece.

This figure is two times fewer than Tuesday’s record of 741 patients undergoing the invasive treatment.

Tragically, 76 people suffering from the coronavirus passed away in the country over the past 24-hour period, representing the highest number of deaths recorded in a single day this year.

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