ATHENS – While retailers, hairdressers and nail salons are open again in Greece – with conditions – after an already lenient second COVID-19 lockdown was eased, the New Democracy government isn’t ready to do the same for restaurants, bars, taverns and other non-essential businesses staying closed.

A government source not identified told Kathimerini the are no plans to open other sectors even though Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is eager to prop up an economy battered by five months of being closed in the last 10 months.

That was done to slow the spread of the Coronavirus, now showing signs of working with fewer cases, deaths and people on ventilators and businesses in hard-hit sectors can operate with a click-and-collect method.

That lets shoppers make purchases online and reservations to pick up the goods outside the stores with limited queues while businesses allowed to have customers inside have restrictions on how many, who can’t stay more than two hours.

Whether businesses remaining shut will be able to open won’t be determined until there is a review of epidemiological data to show if it’s safe after Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis said the government is considering whether to allow people to travel between regions, as a first step in reopening anxious ski resorts.

Next seen opening are junior and senior high schools whose students have been taking classes remotely online in their homes, with a return to the schools seen coming either Jan. 25 or Feb. 1, the paper also said, after seeing if there is a spike in cases by allowing businesses to open again.