Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that he has ordered a three-week nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus epidemic.

The measure, which goes into effect on Saturday, is a reaction to an “aggressive” spike in infections, he said in a nationwide broadcast.

During the lockdown, most stores will have to shut and people will not be allowed to travel between administrative regions.

Anyone needing to leave home to shop, visit a doctor or perform some other essential activity will have to request permission from local authorities through a text message.

Kindergartens and primary schools are to remain open, while all other schools are to switch to remote classes.

“We again opted for these measures sooner, rather than later,” Mitsotakis said in reference to the first lockdown in the spring when Greece managed to suppress the infection rate.

The goal is to reduce the pressure on the health system, Mitsotakis said. With the previous measures failing to flatten the spike, that pressure may have become “unbearable within days,” he said.

The epidemic accelerated especially in the two largest metropolitan areas, of Athens and Thessaloniki.

Even with that, Greece is still doing well relative to the rest of Europe. The country with roughly 11 million inhabitants has so far reported a total of 47,000 infections, with 673 deaths from Covid-19.

Source: dpa/MIA