day 3

So it’s not exactly true that people can’t go outside.  You’re allowed to go outside for the following reasons:

1.      In order to go to work if you cannot work from home and your work cannot be done at a later date.

2.      To buys “necessary” things

3.      Moving about for something related to your health

4.      Extremely urgent matters relating to family

5.      Brief outings close to home for exercise (as long as it’s not part of a group) or walking household animals

In order to do so you have to have a self-declared certificate outlining the reason you are out.  It states your name, your date of birth, where you live and which reason of the above you are out and about, the date of the outing, and your signature.  

So we actually have gone out.  Yesterday it was to pick up our groceries in our car (we had ordered online) and today we took the kids out on their bikes while we went jogging.  Despite having handwritten my certificate (we don’t have a printer) with me there was no check.  We must have seen about twenty other people in a space of about one hectare in a duration of 45 minutes.  The types of people we saw:

- People jogging
- People biking
- People walking
- People sitting on benches
- People blowing bubbles with their children
- People walking their dogs
- People with grocery bags 
- People driving cars

Do these people fit into criteria of allowed outtings?  Maybe.  It’s hard to tell, or even check.  Which makes me wonder how effective the measures put in place are.  Apparently France has one of the highest infection rates.  Every day the number of people infected grows by more than 30 percent.  As of today there have been 264 deaths.  Yesterday alone 89 people died and more than 900 are in the process of resuscitation due to the Coronavirus.  Authorities predict that the worse is yet to come.  Add that to the “normal” medical emergencies that occur every day I can understand why they need to stop this thing. 

So today was a good day simply because we are all together and safe and I’ve gotten news of family and friends all over the world who are living the pandemic who are also a bit bothered, but ok.  And that’s something to be thankful for.  

Today my daughter told me she knew the origin of the virus.  I asked her to draw a picture of what she knows.  Here is it:

(With explanation):