Editorial To Vima: A time for responsibility

It is by now indisputable that the threat posed by the Coronavirus is unprecedented.

Its spread in the community imperils public health and the lives of citizens.

International experience shows that in order to fend off the spread of the virus the most drastic measures must be precisely and unswervingly enforced.

Doctors and scientists that have come in contact with the disease all confirm that it is extremely powerful, is easily transmissible, and has an exceptionally strong impact on older people and the elderly as there are no medicines to treat the virus and no vaccine to prevent and retard its spread.

The common conviction is that it must be confronted with strong and impassable walls that only communities of citizens can construct by protecting themselves and faithfully enforcing public health restrictions.

The message sent by responsible doctors is absolutely clear.

Limit your movements, stay home when the first symptoms appear, and do not expose yourself to danger so as not to expose your family and others because of your contacts.

This admonition pertains to everyone but especially to young people as they often feel they are invincible because they do not understand that they may become infected and ill and spread the virus.

The jig is up. One must condemn impermissible behaviour such as that of revelers in Patras during the first stage of the spread last month who unabashedly violated the ban on carnivals.

Flouting the instructions of public health authorities is careless and unpardonably irresponsible.

The government has already implemented preventive measures and has imposed a host of restrictive measures.

It shut down children’s day care centres, schools, universities, theatres, restaurants, cinemas, courts of law, entertainment venues, shopping malls, department stores, museums, and archaeological sites.

As of today emerging conditions will be re-evaluated by the government and most likely much more restrictive measures will be taken to further limit the movement of citizens.

These measures will essentially quarantine the entire country and are similar to those enforced in Italy due to the evolving public health disaster there.

The truth be told these are wartime conditions.

The protection of human life and of the public health system, without which nothing can function smoothly and effectively, is paramount.
Without a functioning public health system neither the economy nor anything else can operate.

The government and the PM personally have rightly chosen το defend by any means necessary the public health system and avert any prospective collapse of the National Health System through an uncontrollable spread of Coronavirus.

To that end the PM is prepared to take in a timely manner strict preventive measures that will restrict the movement of citizens except when it is absolutely necessary.

We must all be prepared for difficult but necessary conditions.

There is no higher value at this critical time than the defence of human life and bolstering the public health system.
All else is of secondary importance.