Day 136 of coronavirus in France
Day 1 of de-confinement after 55 days of enforced confinement
We celebrated the first day of deconfinement by sending Daddy to a store that is outside of the one-kilometer radius that we were restricted to. Some people say the one-kilometer radius didn’t apply to shopping since certain people must drive more than one-kilometer to reach the nearest shop, but we also heard rumors of people getting fined because they hit a random check point and the authorities knew that there were multiple shopping options between that spot and their home. So, our family chose to shop local, and do without our favorite charcoal that burns twice as long rather than risk a 125€ fine. Better safe than sorry. #firstworldproblems
Tonight, we had our annual barbecue to celebrate Jérome’s birthday. He was the only guest invited. The dining table has been completely converted into a schoolwork station. He said that was fine because he hasn’t been able to use his dining table for a month either since he began telecommuting. So we set our lap trays with fine china and lit candles on the coffee table to tie together our deconstructed dining experience.
Even though people are permitted to go back to work Jérome is choosing to continue work from home. Our school district has chosen to postpone classrooms opening. Some of us are waiting to see what the results of this de-confinement are going to look like.
Meanwhile, it seems that most people have understood that everything is fine and it’s a return to life as normal. The parks are full of families playing – no masks to be seen, despite the fact that our city passed out 35,000 masks a few days ago.
When they begin loosening the restrictions, it doesn’t mean that the virus is less dangerous, it just means that there is room for you at the ICU.
Some of my neighbors are regretting the official term deconfinement as it feels too final and lacks clarity in communicating that today marks a new phase in an ongoing process.
Stores have installed plexiglass barriers to protect their cashiers. Busses as well have barriers to protect the bus drivers. A handful of stores have chosen to require face masks upon entry. But the only place where facemasks are enforced with a fine are on public transportation and only in the greater Paris area.
Oh, and I have another fast-breaking news flash. A few days ago, a doctor at a hospital in Paris pulled out all of the samples of patients in December and tested the samples for COVID-19 and one sample came back positive. So that pushes back our earliest confirmed case of Coronavirus in France nearly a month earlier than the previously reported official date used to be January 25th and now it’s December 27th.
As of right now, I’m not planning on updating over fifty posts that begin with the timeline counter based on those dates. They were honest dates we believed to be true at the time of the posts. I can’t really change the past, can I? This disclaimer will have to do. But I did want to explain to you why the timeline date has changed dramatically since my last post a few days ago.
