ATHENS – It hasn’t worked to cut into a big lead the government holds but major opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras again said that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ New Democracy government has bungled its response to COVID-19.

Speaking in Parliament he noted that Greece was in a fifth month of a third quasi-lockdown that has failed not only to slow cases but has seen them rising as the government goes back and forth about what to do: ease or tighten restrictions.

“We had four months in a row of text messages for the movement of citizens, traffic bans, with the economy, retail and catering closed, and schools closed,” he said of the crisis, reported Kathimerini.

“What has been achieved?” he asked, wondering if the government knew of any other European Union country that has had “such a prolonged and failed lockdown as ours.” 

“In no other European country have schools and retail been closed for four months,” he stressed, also noting that restaurants have been closed for six months, many likely to never reopened after the lockdown ends.

Something is not going well,” he said, without mentioning that while premier he was accused of having no disaster response plan to July 23, 2018 wildfires that killed 102 people, his then-government in chaos about what to do.

New Democracy  spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said of Tsipras’ criticism:  “Insisting on his false narrative of the pandemic, he stubbornly closes his eyes to developments in the rest of the world,” without explaining what that really meant.