There isn’t a lot I can add to the official channels and news about Belgium and COVID-19, besides my own experience and things I assist in my neighborhood.
Until Friday, 13th of March, I kept on traveling by train each morning to Brugge to follow my Dutch classes at school. On the train, I tried not to touch a lot of surfaces, especially the doors, opening buttons and tables. Since there haven’t been mouth masks for a while, I kept my scarf around my neck and mouth.
People: adults, teenagers and even kids around the age of 11 and 12 were never using masks or gloves. The workers of the trains neither. Every time someone coughed we could notice some slight concern in someone’s face, but no big deal. Some people could really control their emotions if they were afraid or in a panic of getting corona.
Until Friday, 13th, it looked like the country was okay with the fact of corona building up. It felt indeed like other flu. When the federal government (Belgium has several governments according to the regions you live in) finally spoke up to the people of the country and decided to cancel schools, close restaurants and bars, people started to be aware of the dimension of the situation. At least those who didn’t do or went to “lockdown parties”. Or also those who didn’t go to the Netherlands’ pubs.
Schools will now be closed until the 20th of April, after the Easter period.
Supermarkets are still open, as well as pharmacies. However, people have been collecting huge amounts of toilet paper and everything else they can fit in their storage. People in Belgium are already big buyers, in a way they buy immediately a lot to store at their homes. Imagine with a kind of an ‘end of the world’ nearby… They left pretty much all the stores reduced to ketchup, mayonnaise, chocolate, and hygiene products (excluding the so precious toilet paper).
I went to Lidl and Colruyt one day after the measures of the government were finally announced and the scenario was the one in the pictures I will share with you, down below.
I have been home, for now. I try not to leave the house in any circumstance. My partner needs to go to work every day to his factory and he is responsible for going to the supermarkets to find what we need. He goes with gloves.
At home, we wash hands more than often. Especially after touching the laptop and mobile phones. We follow official news websites and pages for further information. The rest is up to us. Filling the dead time we have. Between movies, games, books and a dose of internet, days are passing by.
The weather has been, for the first time in the season, bright. I joke that even in this Belgium is a pain in the ass. When all is healthy outside it rains cats and dogs. However, when corona hits, the sun rises. Not fair. But when was life fair, anyway?
Windows are open and the house has fresh air and sunlight each day.
(12h02) At the moment, it is known that Belgium surpassed 1,000 cases in the last 24 hours. Five people died by the virus.
In which country are you living this situation? Share your experiences here and be safe!
A girl and a backpack 