Vaccines on a small island a ‘gift from heaven’
Kathimerini traveled to Halki, near Rhodes, while its residents, among those prioritized for inoculation by the government, were getting their jabs
HALKI – With the customary calmness of a ship captain Vassilis Zabetoulas was scanning the horizon through the large windows on the bridge, where the contours of Halki were visible in the distance. The bow was pointed toward the island, which from afar has a distinctive hump: a smooth curve broken only by the straight lines of the abandoned castle built centuries ago by the Knights of Rhodes. During the hour the trip lasted, the weather was relatively calm, but, every now and then, we encountered large waves that soaked the decks with seawater. Most passengers stayed inside, but some brave souls – Kathimerini photographer Nikos Kokkalias and me, in my first escape from the Athenian quarantine, among them – enjoyed, as if in a trance, the salty air of freedom that mussed up our hair.
The Nissos Halki – named after its home port on the Dodecanese island
‘The main thing is that everyone here has understood the significance of the state giving us priority. The small islands will remain safe tourist destinations’
Some of the Europeans own homes on the island and decided to spend the lockdowns in the security of its isolation. All had registered to be vaccinated
of the same name – travels to and from nearby Kameiros, in northwestern Rhodes, four times a week during winter. Normally, the ship can carry 250 passengers and a few cars. However, the limits imposed during the pandemic have reduced passengers by 60%. “Today, we have a crowd,” the captain said without taking his eyes off the sea. “Many Halki residents stay in Rhodes during the winter and, when they learned the island was due for a priority vaccination, they registered. I’ve seen lots of traffic on my last few trips. More will arrive in the afternoon from Rhodes on the catamaran, which brings the vaccines and the military
doctors that will administer them. I also registered to get vaccinated; we work with tourists all summer, I want to be safe, as much as possible.”
The small ship passed Alimia, an uninhabited island in recent decades, which was an Italian submarine base in World War II and recently the exotic locale where a Belgian reality TV show was filmed. Then, with a smooth right turn, the ship entered its final approach to Halki. Its colorful little houses became visible. We sighed with delight at seeing such beauty.
Like Kastellorizo and Symi, Halki’s halcyon days were in the first decades of the 20th century, thanks to
sponge fishing. Then, the island had a few thousand permanent inhabitants; now, they number in the low hundreds. When we arrived some of them were at the port, waiting for relatives and friends. “This weekend, we will be full, like in summer,” a gentleman carrying two boxes with radiators said enthusiastically.
‘We have no deniers here’
Angelos Fragakis, the young mayor of Halki, was also on the pier. “Halki is the second island with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, after Kastellorizo, to be totally vaccinated. Out of about 300 permanent residents, around 250
will be vaccinated. We have no deniers of the virus here, thank God. However, many elderly people were hesitant to start with because they feared the vaccine’s side effects, like getting sick. Gradually, with some encouraging talk and following one another’s example, they all put their names on the list,” said the former policeman.
“I will be the first to be vaccinated because I saw the way the prime minister and the president set an example and it worked. You should know, in a small place like ours this symbolic gesture convinced a lot of people. Of course, there were those who teased me: ‘Mr Mayor, you do it
first and come to the main square six hours later to show you’re still standing, otherwise we’re not going.’ The main thing is that everyone here has understood the significance of the state giving us priority. The small islands will remain safe tourist destinations. Last year, a bad year, was good for us, because our visitors preferred to avoid the crowds.”
It was not only our compatriots who were ready to be vaccinated on Halki: Next to the port, besides the small supermarket for the essentials, there is Mavri Thalassa (Black Sea), a small taverna that nowadays offers only takeaway food. It is owned by an industrious Georgian – from the Republic of Georgia, that is – who settled in Halki several years ago. Tamazi Tenoshvili considers himself a local and his children speak only Greek. On the island there are also several Albanians who work in construction, a Frenchman who used to work at the Courchevel ski resort – “I met [shipping tycoon] Yiannis Latsis there,” he told me proudly – and somehow ended up in Greece, some Germans and one Australian.
Some of the Europeans own homes on the island and decided to spend the lockdowns in the security of its isolation. All had registered to be vaccinated.
The economic recessionin 2020 was significantly milder in Greece than the government and most analysts had expected, as according to the first estimate by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), issued yesterday, gross domestic product shrank 8.2% last year on an annual basis. This compares with the government’s estimate for a 10.5% contraction, included in the 2021 budget, and the latest European Commission forecast for a 10% drop.
That figure is still worse than the eurozone average of -6.8% and the European Union average of -6.4%. However, it is better than Italy’s -8.8% and Spain’s -11.2%.
The contained contraction in the last quarter of 2020 and the upward revision of Q2 and Q3 saved the day for Greece in 2020. Analysts also noted yesterday that the government’s support measures played a key role in damage control: “The fiscal intervention has been effective, especially in the employment domain,” commented National Bank’s chief economist Nikos Magginas.
In the fourth quarter of the year GDP declined 7.9% from October-December 2019, while on a quarterly basis it expanded 2.7% from Q3.
In Q3 the decline eventually came to 10.5% against a previous estimate of 11.7% and in Q2 to 13.8%, compared to a 14.25% estimate. The first quarter of last year actually showed an annual expansion of 0.1%, rather than the 0.4% contraction forecast.
“The figures show that healthy enterprises continued their investments and public investment supported investment activity,” explained Magginas.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis commented that “despite the great dependence on tourism, the GDP data show that the Greek economy demonstrated greater resilience than many people had thought in 2020.”
Finance Minister Christos Staikouras added that the Greek economy was strongly shaken but withstood the impact of the pandemic. He noted that, although the data are provisional, they “confirm the correctness of the economic policy exercised; a policy that includes a broad range of measures for supporting households and corporations, managing to soften the pandemic’s economic blow.”