Hospital doctors have staged protests around Greece to press demands for the government to hire additional medical staff and use more resources from the private sector.
Doctors and other staff members led the silent demonstrations Tuesday at the front entrance of Greece’s largest hospital in central Athens, wearing surgical and protective gear.
The protests were held outside more than a dozen hospitals, organizsd by the national hospital doctors’ union. It also had the backing from the Greek Communist Party, which sent lawmakers to several of the demonstrations.
Holding up banners reading “We fight for you. Shout for us,” the doctors said more resources were needed to deal with the pandemic in Greece. The national coronavirus death toll reached 79 on Monday and still remains below the number of fatalities attributed to seasonal flu.
The Greek islands of Mykonos and Santorini were placed in partial lockdown on Tuesday. The new measures on Mykonos came after a second case was confirmed on the island on Saturday. Inspections are ongoing to trace the contacts made by the two women who tested positive for Covid-19.
Movement on the two islands is prohibited every day from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
President Katerina Sakellaropoulou on Tuesday published a video on social media hailing the efforts of Greek medical professionals in celebration of World Health Day.
The Greek president praised scientists, researchers, doctors, nurses and paramedics who are battle against the coronavirus pandemic in Greece and other parts of the world.
“We are proud and we thank them,” the Greek president said in a post accompanying the video, which shows a gallery of scientists and medics on the front lines of the crisis.
Αφιερώνουμε την Παγκόσμια Ημέρα Υγείας στις ελληνίδες και τους έλληνες επιστήμονες, ερευνητές, γιατρούς, νοσηλευτές και τραυματιοφορείς που δίνουν τη μάχη κατά του κορωνοϊού εντός και εκτός Ελλάδας. Νιώθουμε υπερήφανοι και τους ευχαριστούμε. #worldhealthday2020#Covid_19pic.twitter.com/6AzlzgOlAy
According to the World Health Organisation, 7 April 2020 is the day to celebrate the work of health professionals and remind world leaders of the critical role they play in keeping the world healthy.
This year, WHO has dedicated World Health Day in support of nurses and midwifes, celebrating the incredible work they are doing at the forefront of the COVID-19 response.
“Nurses and other health workers are at the forefront of COVID-19 response – providing high quality, respectful treatment and care, leading community dialogue to address fears and questions and, in some instances, collecting data for clinical studies. Quite simply, without nurses, there would be no response”, the world health organisation says.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday sent a message of support to all diaspora Greeks, giving extended sympathies to COVID-19 victims in the United States.
“We have won the first battle. And every day we are winning the second one. Through the government’s bold and swift decisions. Through the mobilisation of the state. And with the responsible behaviour of all citizens, in cities and villages,” he underlined, adding that his thoughts are with the Greeks, wherever they may be, and especially with those living in the USA.
The coronavirus death toll in the United States has surpassed 10,000 and infections have risen to nearly 400,000.
“In these difficult hours, my thoughts also go out to our brothers and sisters beyond our borders, to Greeks wherever they may be – and especially in the United States and in New York.”
Mitsotakis has called on Greeks abroad to abide by social distancing and sanitation measures, which has been proven to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
“The experience in our country shows that calmness and solidarity bring results. So stay home, taking care of your personal hygiene and those who are most vulnerable. And stay next to each other. Our Embassy and Consulates will always be open to you. The organisations and our Church are a stable network of contribution and mutual aid,” he underlined.
The prime minister also urged Greeks abroad to contact their relatives and familiarise themselves with the new platform: greecefromhome.com.
“We will succeed,” he said, adding: “With responsibility and discipline, the ordeal of the pandemic will soon be over. And we must be healthy and with as few losses as possible. To meet again, united and strong, in the summer, at home.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responded to the growing concerns of His Eminence Archbishop Makarios, affirming to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia that private easter ceremonies conducted in the church will not be interrupted by members of authority.
Scott Morrison stressed that Easter Holy Week services for the Orthodox churches are “a special ritual that requires the presence of more than two or three people” and concluded by noting that “The Australian Government will show understanding during this period for the Churches of the Orthodox Archdiocese.”
His Eminence thanked the Prime Minister on his consideration and understanding that the Holy Week for the Orthodox Church is a special event for all Orthodox Christians.
Mr. Makarios has remained in constant communication with the Federal and State Authorities of the country from the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, a statement released by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia reveals.
The announcement by the Prime Minister followed the Archbishop’s concerns regarding the broadcasts of the ceremonies via the internet. “I do not want them to see from the broadcasts that there are more people in the Temple (priest, deacon, right-wing chanter, left-wing chanter, young priest, ministers) and to consider us illegal. I don’t want police officers to come and knock on our doors during the procession”, said His Eminence.
The Minister of Multiculturalism, Mr. Geoff Lee, also sent congratulatory letters to religious leaders in Australia. The minister particularly thanked the Archbishop for his strong leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Orthodox Church being the first Australian church to take steps to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
With the outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent panic buying throughout Australia’s supermarkets, who can forget the incredible queues, the empty shelves and even brawling customers? How many times did we visit supermarkets to look for certain items and realise they were still unavailable? And yet, people still persisted with supermarkets, as the uncertainty and fear set in, and continued with the daily cycle of visiting supermarkets and coming away in disappointment.
Passing by my local supermarket at 6.45am, on my way to work, and I was
shocked at the long lines of customers waiting for the 7am opening; whether it
was seniors morning or public health service workers, the long queues were the
same length… And when I did finally go shopping on various days, I noticed the
same people in the queues and believed they surely had bought enough for
certain item and were now buying for their children and grandchildren.
In all this madness, Earlwood’s Trianon Cake Shop stepped up to support locals in their efforts to find items such as flour, sugar and even rice. Up went the sign in Trianon Cake Shop’s window that flour, sugar and rice was available there.
James Pitsiniagas offering customers flour at the Trianon Cake Shop.
The Trianon story goes back a very long time; it is a story of joy and sorrow, and a triumph over all adversity. Andreas Efthymiou and his κουμπάρο Dimitrios Christou opened up the Trianon cake shop in Morfou, Cyprus. Despite being such a successful business, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, with Morfou subsequently coming under Turkish occupation, the Efthymiou and Christou families lost everything and became refugees.
Life has its wonders and ironies. Both Andreas and Dimitrios, and their families, migrated to Sydney, Australia; Both men worked at the Alaska Cake Shop in Kingsford; and they would come together, again, to buy a cake shop in Earlwood. And they named their new business, Trianon.
The Efthymiou and Christou families worked the business together for eight years; they parted ways when Andreas and his family took the opportunity to run the Athens Cake Shop at Maroubra Junction. In 1994, the Christou family decided to sell Trianon and it is Andreas and his two sons, Arthur and Chris, who take over. These days, it is Andreas’ son, Arthur, and his son-in-law, James Pitsiniagas, who run the shop, so all the sweet delicacies have passed onto the next generations- Trianon Cake Shop is a third-generation business!
Trianon Cake Shop is now selling flour and sugar.
Like so many small businesses, COVID-19 has greatly hurt the Trianon Cake Shop’s business. James was very upfront about the whole situation, ‘Business just dried up. The flow of customers into our shop became a trickle. As a result, it was very sad to stand down our employees for the time being.
Easter is just around the corner. This time of year, we are meant to be getting the Cypriot flaounes and tsourekia ready. This year, we have no idea of what to make because we cannot gauge what people want. There is so much uncertainty at the moment as workers are losing their jobs and they don’t know what is going to happen. People are hesitant and reserved about everything.
As Greeks, we all look forward to Easter; this year’s Easter will be like no other as we will not be able to go to church and we cannot even celebrate with relatives and friends. To give you one item as an example of how things have changed is the candles godparents give to their godchildren; we have so much stock but who will buy these candles if they cannot visit their godchild or go to church? Both the supplier and us lose out.”
James Pitsiniagas is adjusting to a new reality after the Federal Government’s coronavirus restrictions.
Asked about how the initiative to begin selling flour, sugar and rice came about, James explains, “Our customers kept on coming into our cakes shop and recounting their experiences of how shelves were empty as a result of the panic-buying. They were very stressed and anxious about the whole situation. We just kept getting customers asking for flour and sugar.
“So, we just wanted to do
something for the community- to relieve our customers of all this stress. We
rang up our supplier and enquired about his supply of items such as flour,
sugar and rice, and he had stock.
“And our customers keep coming
in and asking for these items, and they are very appreciative about this
initiative. They are happy about this.”
With the uncertainty about the
Federal and State Governments’ next measures and how they will affect the
community, James remains hopeful about the dire economic situation, “We are all
hurting and there will be more hurt to come, but I am hopeful it will pass and
we will all return to some normality.”
Ambitious. Defiant. Idiosyncratic. Three words used by art critics around the world to describe well-known Greek Renaissance painter, El Greco.
To celebrate his life, we take a look back at why El Greco is associated with those words in the first place.
Early Life and Works:
Domenikos Theotokopoulos was born in 1541 in Chandakas (today’s Heraklion) in Venetian-occupied Crete, to wealthy parents. Without knowing much about his teachers and artistic apprenticeship, there is no doubt that he had the opportunity to study Byzantine painting in his hometown and become acquainted with Western art.
Portrait of El Greco. Source: Unknown.
In 1567, because Crete was then a Venetian possession and he was a Venetian citizen, he decided to go to Venice to study. It was there he acquired the name El Greco (the Greek), as it was custom to identify a man by designating a country or city of origin to him.
El Greco never forgot that he was of Greek descent though and usually signed his paintings in Greek letters with his full name, Domenikos Theotokopoulos.
Interestingly, many of his early works in Italy don’t show any influence from his Byzantine heritage. They are completely in the Venetian Renaissance style of the 16th century. One such example is ‘Christ Healing The Blind‘ which places figures in deep space and emphasises the architectural setting.
One of El Greco’s early works, Christ Healing the Blind.
Later Years and Works:
In 1576, El Greco moved to the Spanish city of Toledo, where his artistic production reached its peak.
The Dean of the Toledo Cathedral, Diego de Castilla, commissioned El Greco to paint a group of works for the altar of the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo (such as ‘The Trinity‘ and ‘The Assumption of the Virgin,’ both 1579). Castilla also facilitated the commission of ‘The Disrobing of Christ‘ (1579), and these paintings would become some of El Greco’s most accomplished masterworks.
However, to this day, his most universally regarded artwork remains ‘The Burial of Count Orgaz‘ (1588). This work features a dichotomy of heaven and earth, and depicts a visionary experience, transcending the known and revealing that which exists in the spiritual imagination.
The Burial of Count Orgaz (1588)The Disrobing of Christ (1579)
Death and Legacy:
El Greco died on April 7, 1614, at the age of 73 and was buried in the church of Agios Domenikos in Toledo.
For many years, his name remained obscure and his paintings in churches and palaces in Italy and Spain were considered works of some madman. However, from the beginning of the 20th century, his work began to be recognised and today he is considered one of the leading visual artists of all time.
Cardinal George Pell will be released from prison after the High Court overturned his conviction for historic child sex offences.
Chief Justice Kiefel handed down the ruling on behalf of the full bench to the near-empty High Court, and unanimously found Pell’s conviction for child sex abuse should be overturned and he should immediately be released from prison.
“The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and the verdicts of acquittal be entered in their places,” a summary of their decision, handed down today, read.
Cardinal Pell, 78, had been serving a six-year jail sentence after he was convicted in 2018 of abusing two choirboys in the 1990s, when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne.
Today’s decision means Australia’s most senior Catholic will be released from Barwon Prison later this afternoon.
Move over Mozart, here comes Stelios Kerasidis. A seven-year-old Greek piano prodigy has penned an “isolation waltz” inspired by the coronavirus pandemic.
The composition is a moving piece of music dedicated to all the people who continue to suffer across the world from the disease, as well as those who are forced to stay at home in isolation.
“Hi guys! I’m Stelios, I’m at home too. Let’s be just a teeny bit more patient and we will soon be out swimming in the sea! I’m dedicating you a piece of my own,” Kerasidis says in the YouTube video.
The hypnotic melody has picked up more than 43,000 hits on YouTube since its launch last week.
The work is his third composition after he also penned two piano concertos, ‘Veronika‘ and ‘Anastasia,’ named after his sisters.
“Music is my entire world,” he told Reuters last year.
The piano wonder child started performing in public at the age of five. At age six, he became the youngest Greek musician to perform a Chopin waltz at Carnegie Hall.
Now, stuck in isolation, Kerasidis has not hinted whether he has another composition up his sleeve.
The oldest person in Greece infected with COVID-19 is a 101-year-old man, according to an epidemiological report published by the Hellenic National Public Health Organisation (EODY).
The EODY report revealed a wide range of interesting statistical data about the spread of the disease in Greece.
Age& Gender:
Statistics showing the impact of coronavirus on the Greek people by age and gender. Source: EODY.
The youngest child infected with the virus is less than 1 year old.
The average age of confirmed cases is 49 years of age.
Males are the hardest hit by the coronavirus, representing just over half, or 54.9 percent, of all those diagnosed with it.
76.9 percent of those 93 individuals who are currently in serious conditions are also male.
The youngest patient who died was 39 years old, the oldest 95.
Geographical Distribution:
Map of Greece with the number of cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. Source: EODY .
The highest concentration of people aged over 50 diagnosed with coronavirus can be found in Northern Greece, particularly near Kastoria.
There have also been a number of recent deaths recorded around that area including an 82-year-old man being treated at a Patra hospital, a 72-year-old in Alexandroupoli and a 78-year-old in Thessaloniki.
COVID-19 Testing:
Chart: red = positive, grey = negative. Source: EODY.
From January 1, 2020 until April 5, 2020, a total of 25,453 tests on the coronavirus have been conducted. 1,699 tests, that is 6.7%, were positive for the virus.
Do you like Greek comedies and theatre? The Greek Herald has found a way to combine them both.
Comedies of the past, recently played on the Greek theatrical stage, to help you relax during these unprecedented times.
Every week, as part of #KeepItGreek, The Greek Herald team will choose a theatrical play for our loyal followers.
Today, we begin with «Χτυποκάρδια στα Θρανία». Lakis Lazopoulos signed on for the adaptation and directed the popular comedy, with original music by Manos Hatzidakis. Katerina Geronikolou plays the role of Lisa Petrovasili and Orestis Tziovas plays the role of Professor Dimitris Papadopoulos. In surprise roles are Maro Kontou, Nikos Galanos and Costas Voutsas.
The following is a Greek description of the film if you want to challenge yourself even further to #KeepItGreek:
Σας αρέσουν οι παλιές ελληνικές κωμωδίες και το θέατρο; Ο Ελληνικός Κήρυκας
βρήκε έναν τρόπο να τα συνδυάσετε.
Κωμωδίες του παρελθόντος, που παίχθηκαν πρόσφατα στην ελληνική θεατρική
σκηνή για να περάσετε πιο χαλαρά αυτές τις πρωτόγνωρες ημέρες.
Ο Ελληνικός Κήρυκας στο πλαίσιο του #KeepitGreek θα επιλέγει για εσάς
κάθε εβδομάδα ένα θεατρικό έργο.
Αρχή σήμερα με τα «Χτυποκάρδια στα Θρανία». Ο Λάκη Λαζόπουλος υπέγραψε τη
διασκευή και σκηνοθεσία της δημοφιλούς κωμωδίας, με την πρωτότυπη μουσική του
Μάνου Χατζιδάκι. Στο ρόλο της Λίζας Πετροβασίλη η Κατερίνα Γερονικολού και στο
ρόλο του καθηγητή Δημήτρη Παπαδόπουλου ο Ορέστης Τζιόβας. Σε ρόλους έκπληξη οι
Μάρω Κοντού, Νίκος Γαλανός και Κώστας Βουτσάς.
![Seven-year-old Greek piano prodigy pens an ‘isolation waltz’ [VIDEO]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/greek-prodigy-top.jpg "Seven-year-old Greek piano prodigy pens an ‘isolation waltz’ [VIDEO]")
