When someone tests positive in a small, close-knit community on a Greek island, privacy is the first thing to go.
CHIOS, Greece — The man taking the last drag of his cigarette in the sweltering heat outside his convenience store in Volissos, a village on the Greek island of Chios, was clear: No mask, no shopping.
He stubbed the cigarette out, slipped the mask from his chin over his mouth and nose, and went back in behind the till.
Down at the beach, waiters who until the day before had only reluctantly donned face shields, while ferrying mezze and cold beers to those tanning by the gently lapping Aegean waters, needed no prompting to cover their faces.
And on the early morning swim shift, populated by the elderly and those — like me — who were catering to the very young, masks were worn universally.
Something had happened on that one day last month to make masks suddenly de rigueur: Someone was sick on the island, and everyone was aware they lived in this village.
I knew that escaping Brussels, my current home, to visit my parents in Greece would be different. That was the point.
ImageThe view at sunset from the castle in the town of Volissos. The view at sunset from the castle in the town of Volissos.Credit...Byron Smith for The New York Times After a brutal lockdown in the spring and heightened safety measures in Brussels, my family craved a change of scene, a break from isolation — and some help.
By the end of July, I had spent three months investigating Belgium’s deadly pandemic response in nursing homes. After that grim mission, the desire to get out was so potent that we decided to travel 12 hours across Europe on two flights, and face a week of isolation plus some expensive coronavirus tests on arrival — all with a 2-year-old in tow.
And it was so worth it. We spent lazy hours on the pebbled beaches, picked honey-sweet figs straight from trees, ate fresh fish with delicious deep-red tomatoes, and enjoyed grandparent-provided child care.
Chios, with 50,000 residents and famous for its leading role in Greece’s huge shipping industry, inhabits a distinctly different Covid-19 universe than Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union and Belgium’s capital, with a population of 1.2 million.
Belgium has had one of the worst coronavirus records globally, with nearly 100,000 infections and 9,930 deaths to date among its approximately 11.5 million people.
Greece has only a slightly smaller population, about 10.4 million, but is less densely inhabited because so many people live on islands like Chios — naturally isolated, or trapped, depending on one’s perspective. And Greece is miles down the list of bad virus news, with just over 14,000 cases and 316 deaths.
