ATHENS – In criticism following the statements made by Development and Investments Minister Adonis Georgiadis on Monday, main opposition SYRIZA said the government “is completely out of touch with reality” and taking measures that were “too little and too late”.

In an announcement under the headline “Unabashed deniers of reality and the science, in spite of the ‘black’ records”, SYRIZA attacked the government for failing to take steps to protect the national health system.

“The government, via the tele-minister of development, and in spite of the tragic epidemiological picture of the country, its first places for case numbers and losses, the nonexistent reflexes in the face of the Omicron variant, despite the warnings of the World Health Organisation and, when all is said and done, the delayed and inadequate health protection measures that led, among others, to the ‘holiday Waterloo’ in hospitality, comes to once again announce the end of the pandemic in one to 1.5 months,” the announcement said.

It accused Georgiadis of being “ever willing to repeat the unscientific nonsense of his leader” and assuring Greeks that the health system was not under pressure in spite of an explosion in case numbers, while “knocking on wood that this never happens”.

“When a government is completely out of touch with reality, it does not feel the need to do anything at all to support the national health system and its people, it is indifferent to the health insecurity and economic burden on the citizens and refuses to prescribe or compensate for tests, abandoning people to queue in endless lines outside public facilities and diagnostic centres,” it added.

SYRIZA equally criticised the government’s failure to provide free masks or put a cap on the prices of high-protection masks, the lack of tracing of cases and for not taking measures to reduce transmissions on public transport and in schools.