Migrants wait in the buffer zone at the Turkey-Greece border, near the Pazarkule crossing gate in Edirne, Turkey, on March 5, 2020. (BULENT KILIC / AFP)

ATHENS — After successfully exiting a debt crisis which brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, Greece is faced with a new difficult double test this spring -- returns of refugees and migrants across its border with Turkey and the further spread of the COVID-19 epidemic.

"It is a new age of uncertainty," read an editorial on Greece's daily newspaper To Vima (The Tribune) a few days ago.

CORONAVIRUS THREATENS ECONOMIC RECOVERY

As the debt bailout era was formally over in the summer of 2018, Athens began to speed up healing the wounds caused by the debt crisis and boost sustainable economic growth. Yet the emergence of the novel coronavirus outbreak is casting fresh shadows over the government's planning.

Since Feb 26 when Greek Health Ministry reported the first confirmed case in the country, a total of 73 cases had been reported as of Sunday.

The state will support everyone who proves that his business has been stricken and turnover has fallen as a result of the coronavirus

Adonis Georgiadis, Minister of Development and Investments, Greece

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Authorities have been gradually implementing measures to contain the further spread of the virus.

In the country's three western regions, where most cases were reported, all schools will remain closed and all cultural events have been suspended until at least mid-March.

Nationwide, all open care centers for the elderly will be closed and all conferences suspended until early April, while all sports events will be held without spectators and all school excursions within Greece will be suspended for the next two weeks.

Before the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Greek government projected a 2.8-percent expansion of the economy for this year's budget.

However, the Hellenic Fiscal Council, an independent administrative authority, said in a report last week that under a basic scenario, the Greek GDP may shrink by 0.9 percent in 2020 and Greece will not achieve initial growth targets for this year, due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Economists and analysts have also voiced concerns over the disease's impact on tourism and shipping industries, the two pillars of the economy.

"All of us who are in the tourism industry are concerned. The season has not started for us yet, but it is already underway for cruise ships and it is quite difficult at the moment to manage what has started in our country," Antonis Stelliatos, president of the Hellenic Professional Yacht Owners Association, said when evaluating the coronavirus impact recently at a briefing held by the Greek Shipping and Island Policy Ministry.

"If tourism does not perform well, this will be very negative for Greek economy," he said, sounding a hopeful note that the crisis will be over soon.

Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said Thursday that "the impact of the coronavirus will be greater than the original estimates, but will be of a temporary character."

The ministry is set to announce Monday the first package of measures to support businesses affected by the epidemic.

"The state will support everyone who proves that his business has been stricken and turnover has fallen as a result of the coronavirus," Greek Minister of Development and Investments Adonis Georgiadis said Saturday in an interview with local broadcaster SKAI TV. "We will not let them be destroyed."

Migrants ride a horse cart on their way to a camp on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Greece border near the Pazarkule crossing gate in Edirne province on March 7, 2020. (OZAN KOSE /AFP)

REFUGEES RETURNING AGAIN

Since Feb 28, Greece is also facing returns of refugees and migrants across its border with Turkey, after Ankara decided to allow tens of thousands of people to reach its land border with Greece, in response to recent developments in Syria's Idlib province, which dramatically increased the number of displaced people on the Turkey-Syria border.

Greek police and army forces have so far thwarted at least 40,000 illegal crossings, according to government sources.

Athens has strengthened patrols on land and at sea in the northeastern Aegean Sea to avert a replay of the 2015 migrant crisis, when about 1 million people crossed into Greece and went ahead to other European countries, until the closure of borders along the Balkan route and the European Union (EU)-Turkey agreement in March 2016 were introduced to stem the influx.

With 100,000 refugees and migrants already stranded in Greece, including more than 42,000 hosted in overflowing reception centers on the islands, according to official statistics, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis sent a clear message repeatedly in the past few days that Greece will not accept more illegal entries.

While Turkey seeks a review of the terms of the 2016 deal to put a brake of the pressure on Europe's borders, leaders of EU institutions who visited the Greece-Turkey land border last week with Greek prime minister also voiced determination to make a common European response to the challenge, and pledged additional financial aid to Greece for the management of the crisis and an increased presence of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in the Aegean.

Ilias Tasopoulos, an expert of international relations at the Center for Mediterranean, Middle East and Islamic Studies, a research group at the University of Peloponnese, told Xinhua that the migration issue is one of the most significant issues that need to be dealt with today.

GREECE ACTS TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES

Analysts, media and ordinary citizens in Greece, according to opinion polls, commend Athens for its handling of both challenges.

"Greece can do it." Greek daily Kathimerini carried such an editorial title recently.

Greece has a public system and a large-scale plan, and the Greeks are able to manage the challenge, commented the Kathimerini.

Another editorial published by the Ta Nea (The News) daily noted: "Greece is now confronted with a public health crisis. It has become abundantly clear from other recent crises that one cannot manage an emergency without cooperation, maturity, and compliance with the rules and regulations."

Nine out of ten Greeks agree with the government's stance on the management of refugees, according to the results of two opinion polls published Sunday on newspapers like Proto Thema (Top Story) and Eleftheros Typos (Free Press).

READ MORE: Greece plans to deport migrants who arrived after March 1

"Ankara may have been taken aback. Athens acted immediately and decisively without awaiting the EU's time-consuming procedures," commented an editorial in To Vima.

Like in the face of international challenges which transcend borders, Greece cannot bear the burden on its own, effective solutions will be given only through collective actions, Tasopoulos said in the interview with Xinhua.

"The fact that there is not a common asylum granting policy on European level is something we should face today. It is not possible for one country or the countries at the EU's external borders to shoulder all the cost. This is the root of the issue in the refugee and migration problem," he said.

"If there is no understanding, consensus and a final result with a timetable, it is very difficult to do anything," the Greek expert stressed.

"It is time for the EU to prove that Greece is not a mere bulwark that's being paid to keep the migrants at bay," said the Kathimerini.