ATHENS — In stern criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic, main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras expressed "deep concern" about the way this was unfolding in an interview with Kontra Channel broadcast late on Monday, claiming that "the country has no government at this time."

Tsipras was also critical regarding issues of foreign and economic policy, as well as transparency and the quality of democracy.

On the management of the pandemic, the main opposition leader said that the wrong model was being followed and that the government "does not have the slightest idea what the citizens are going through."

"We did not say that the government generated the crisis. The question is whether the government did everything it could to address the crisis or whether it acted as an amplifier of the crisis. The answer is that it acted as as amplifier," Tsipras added.

He also accused the government of "instrumentalising the Scientists Committee" and in this way losing society's trust: "We have asked for the minutes of the Committee's meetings to be made public in order to protect it, as we have information suggesting that the committee has come under immense pressure to adopt the decisions the government wants".

He noted that the fault lies with the government and not with the scientists, who were doing their job. He also clarified that SYRIZA had not asked that the Committee meeting minutes be made freely availabe to everyone but only for the parliamentary deputies and political parties to be given access.

Finally, he said that "we must think about and consider what is going wrong after five months of lockdown".