Where are Masks Still Required in Greece?

As of June 1st, the use of masks is no longer required in much of Greece, but there are still some places where people must wear a face covering in the country.

For example, masks are required both for taxi drivers and their passengers, but are not required for those traveling in airplanes.

Employees and customers in pharmacies also must wear masks, but employees and customers in retail stores, supermarkets, banks, and other businesses are not required to.

Travelers in ferries are required to wear masks in enclosed spaces on the boat but do not have to wear them in outdoor areas. All those traveling on Greek KTEL buses and trains, which have numbered seats, do not have to wear protective face coverings either.

However, those using public transportation such as buses, trolleys, the metro, or tram must wear a mask.

Masks no longer required in many places across Greece

Office workers are not required to wear protective face coverings at work anymore and neither are customers and employees at restaurants and bars.

The use of masks is still required at all private and public hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and doctors’ offices, as well as in all elder care facilities.

A fourth dose of a vaccine against COVID-19 will likely be necessary, especially for vulnerable groups, Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris said on Monday.

Speaking on SKAI television, he said that the government and his counterparts in Europe envisaged something along the lines of the seasonal flu shot without having to repeatedly invite the population to get vaccinated.

“I consider it a given that there will be an issue of vaccinating the population, especially the vulnerable population, as we approach the months of autumn,” he said.

He also noted a decision by all European Union countries to defer deliveries originally planned for the summer until September because the pharmaceutical companies consider that “at that time…we will have a vaccine that is much more effective against Omicron.”

The health minister concluded by stressing that the pandemic was not over: “…what is happening throughout Europe is that the pandemic is subsiding…but everyone tells us, all the scientists here in Greece and abroad and the ECDC, that we must be very careful because even under these conditions, in other words with the Omicron variant and with the process remaining the same, we will definitely come under pressure in the autumn.”