ΙΚΑRΙΑ — Caught earlier posing for photos with admirers – maskless – during a bicycle mountain ride during a COVID-19 lockdown, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has again broken the health restrictions his New Democracy government imposed.

During a visit to the island of Ikaria – a famed Blue Zone for longevity – he was spotted in a gathering with some 50 people which isn’t allowed for everyone else, the Sydney-based Greek City Times and Greek media reported.

“The Prime Minister and his entourage are eating on the veranda of the house of the MP (Member of Parliament ) from Samos,”one woman wrote, the site said of a group that reportedly included two ministers and the General Secretary for Primary Health Care and dignitaries from Ikaria and neighboring islands. 

Preparations for the event had been ongoing for a couple of days, the reports saying it was planned and not impromptu. The website newsit.gr reported and posted an exclusive video, showing the PM and his entourage entering the house accompanied by the sound of folk music.

Mitsotakis also visited the remote islands of Fournoi in the eastern Aegean Sea to check with the vaccination program’s progress. Elderly locals surrounded him with whom he exchanged warm covid friendly fist greetings and listened to Greek songs, another violation. There was no immediate response from his office.

People who don’t wear masks, stay safe social distances or take part in public gatherings can face fines of 500 euros ($602.45) but there was no report anyone in the entourage was penalized.

His administration had just retightened a second lockdown that included a 6p.m. curfew on the weekends restricting people to their homes and barred from the kind of gathering that took place for his group.

Tsipras: 'Τhe wise man does not make the same mistake twice'

"Τhe wise man does not make the same mistake twice," SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance's leader Alexis Tsipras on Sunday said in post on Instagram referring to the visit of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Ikaria island.

The leader of the main opposition in a post on Instagram, which he accompanied with a relevant video from the website News247 on the "feast", as he said, to Ikaria, stated: "Τhe wise man does not make the same mistake twice. It is not a repeated action of carelessness, but it shows deep arrogance and boasting. I am the power and I do what I want. Why? Because I can do so."