Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday thanked respected historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari for comments praising the country’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

“Greece is doing an amazing job in containing this epidemic,” Harari said in an interview on CBS’s Late Late Show with James Corden in an online discussion about the coronavirus and its impact on humanity.

“If I had to choose between Greece and the United States for who should be leading the world now, giving us a plan of action, I would definitely choose Greece,” the Israeli philosopher added, saying that “when you look at the actual response of the US, in its own house, to the epidemic, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that it’s not responsible for the world.”

Taking to Twitter, Mitsotakis thanked Yuval “for his kind words.”

“During these trying times, everyone has had to make sacrifices, but we stand united and determined in the fight against COVID-19,” the Greek prime minister tweeted.

Yuval stressed that the decisions being taken by governments today “will obviously shape these countries for years to come, not just for a few weeks.”

He also said that it is encouraging to see “that almost all over the world, people have a hidden reservoir of deep trust in science despite the attacks of recent years on science.

“I hope when the crisis is over, people will remember who they really trusted,” he said.

Watch the interview in full above. Harari’s comments on Greece begin at about the 11.30 mark.

This article was first published on ekathimerini.com