In 1986-87 Greece was covered in a blanket of snow. At the beginning of 2019, snow covered the north of the country. This month, very unusually as it turns out, Thessaloniki has escaped the worst (sunny but very cold) while Athens is in chaos and some of the islands are snow-covered for the first time in living memory.
Until the snow hit, the news was dominated by rape – in particular, one assault that allegedly happened at a New Year celebration in a local hotel. The young woman woke up in a strange room. Her underwear had been removed and she was utterly disoriented. She went to the police the next day. Samples have been taken for DNA and toxicological investigation. Indeed, some were sent to Switzerland for analysis. The alleged rapists are rich kids, one or two from a well-known family. They have admitted to having sex with the 24-year-old but maintain that it was consensual. Let me say from the outset that if the toxicological results indicate that the woman was drugged with a drug like Rohypnol, I hope the privileged bastards go down for years. At first, the media did not reveal the names of those involved or the hotel in question, but then social media took hold of the situation and anonymity was blown out of the water. Well before this goes to court, battle lines are being drawn as accuser and accused are being tried by desktop warriors of every hue. We’ve moved from ‘innocent until proven guilty’ to ‘guilty until proven innocent’ to ‘guilty until proven guilty’. More about this when more facts come to light.
I haven’t mentioned anything about Covid for a while. New cases have hovered at around 20,000 daily for a month now, but today (29th January) saw a small reduction in deaths and a significant decrease in intubations, 78 and 583 respectively. The report also says that since the beginning of the crisis 1,909,880 million people have been infected, i.e. about one in six people or 17% of the population. Total deaths stand at 23,275, which means that only one infected person out of 82 has died. Moreover, 95% of the fatalities to date have been over 70 years old with underlying conditions. I have a feeling that the government feels it has done what it can and will now let the disease run its course. Accordingly, some of the restrictions imposed earlier in the month have been lifted. Finally, in Thessaloniki, today’s new cases were running at around 10% of the national total, which is in proportion; recently we were “over-represented”!