I have briefly referred to the problems with Radio Arvila in GW 26/2021. Greek Reporter has covered the story in depth and goes out of its way to show how people have been driven to suicide on discovering intimate images and video clips of themselves have been uploaded. https://greekreporter.com/2021/12/15/revenge-porn-greece/
The other three presenters of Radio Arvila have distanced themselves from the malefactor, Stathis Panagiotopoulos, but — as yet one more former employee of the program has claimed today (29/12/21) – it is impossible that the others did not know. My guess is the program will eventually be pulled.
Monday 27th saw a record of over 9,000 new cases only to be exceeded on Tuesday by a huge increase of over 21,600. The good news is the death toll and intubation averages have remained constant, so the new cases may be milder than Delta. Deaths are mainly due to the Delta variant.
We await the government’s latest announcements due later today.
Earlier in the month we had the second round of internal KINAL (Movement for Change) elections. This is the latest manifestation of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) founded by Andreas Papandreou. The losing candidate was Papandreou’s son, George. Greek politics is very dynastic. George, his dad and grandfather (also George) were Prime Ministers. The current PM is the son of a former PM. The Karamanlis family have also provided two PMs – uncle and nephew – the very meaning of the word nepotism. That makes five related PMs in around 55 years! The result of the KINAL vote, 68%-32% in favour of the winner, Nikos Androulakis, has probably ended George Papandreou’s political career, ushered in a younger generation (Androulakis is over 20 years younger than his opponent), and is showing signs of wooing back into the PASOK/KINAL fold voters who flocked to SYRIZA in 2015.
Returning to Covid, there is no end to anti-vaxxer stupidity. A father, mother and daughter from Serres all died within about two days of one another. The 48-year-old daughter was a suspended health worker. Religious belief seems to be at the root of their refusal to get vaccinated. Another couple in Lamia died within two weeks of each other leaving three children orphaned. Again, religion was a contributory factor. The mother’s cousin, an ambulance driver, did his best to persuade them based on what he had witnessed in the course of his work.
30 December 2021. What a week so far! Cases today were over 35,500. Fortunately, deaths and intubations still remain steady at around 70 and 600 respectively. A Covid patient in the Papanikolaou Hospital threw himself headfirst out of a second storey window. Dead. And, finally, the new rules that came into effect today have probably scuppered our next session on 9th January, so they year is ending as badly as it began. Let’s see what 2022 has in store for us.