Confinement

Last night, President Macron announced confinement measures, for 15 days (for now... we won't be surprised if it's extended). Since school and sports were already called off and Frédéric is at home, that doesn't change a lot for us.

All French cell phones got a text message from the government this morning telling us about the rules and where we could find more information, for anyone who might have missed the president's speech last night.

We have to show a pass any time we go out now, justifying our reasons for being out. Authorized reasons are limited to: going to work, if you can't work at home, grocery shopping, seeing a doctor (if unavoidable), helping family or picking up children, exercise / walking the dog.

The boys can't currently access the online learning portal for school - the servers aren't set up for this much traffic.

So today they worked some in the yard, had P.E. class. We're thankful for good weather this week!

Lockdown

Yesterday, Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, announced that as of last night at midnight, bars, restaurants, and any non-essential places of business that are open to the public have been closed by the government.

Businesses that aren't open to the public can remain open but the government strongly encourages remote work.

Parents who can't work remotely and who have children under 16 can submit a form to stay home with their kids and be on paid leave from work.

People still don't seem to be taking it seriously - tons of people were out enjoying the nice weather in Parisian parks today, for example - so we won't be surprised to see stronger lockdown measures come out soon.

Coronavirus affecting our lives

We had planned a family lunch with Frédéric's siblings and cousins, but as we heard more about Covid-19, we decided it would be best to stay put at home, and not put ourselves at risk, particularly since Frédéric has asthma. 

So we had our family lunch at home instead, and will see the family once things settle down. 

family lunch during covid-19

Schools Closed

We learned last night during President Macron's televised speech to the country that schools would be closed nationwide starting Monday, until further notice.

We're near a hot-spot for coronavirus, Crépy-en-Valois and Vaumoise in the Oise department, but up until now, they'd been handling limitations and closures on a departmental level.

Starting this past week, schools in Oise and Haut Rhin were closed for two weeks, and Corsica closed schools as well. Now the rest of the country will join them, and we'll all get to see how e-learning works.

At this point, there is no planned date for schools to re-open. 

Noah is 12!

We found out a few weeks ago that Noah qualified for regionals on two events: 400-meter medley and 1500-meter freestyle.

Unfortunately, the regional swim meet was set to be in the Oise department, which shut down all sporting events due to coronavirus.

We went to see our friends for the weekend anyway, and celebrated Noah's birthday with them.

Benjamin and Noah

Noah decorated his own cake, of course