Living Under a Vaccine Passport

Tuesday morning, Earl and I drove to the city of Castelnaudary. 

Beautiful flowers fly above the streets

We parked in the lot across from the hospital, and I went in for my first French mammogram. But before I could enter the hospital, I needed to show my pass sanitaire. The pass sanitaire is a vaccine passport. If you haven't been vaccinated in France, forget visiting the hospital for yearly exams like mammograms or colonoscopies.  

Here in France, we are required to show a Pass Sanitaire. That is a QR code that proves we have been vaccinated if we want to eat in a restaurant, have coffee in a café, or enter the square to listen to live music. 

Cappuccino is available with the pass sanitaire

The rules began on August 9th and since then, surprisingly, cafes and restaurants have been busy with patrons who willingly pull out their phones and show their passes. France currently has a loophole that people can get tested every three days and show their negative tests. The Covid tests are free for French residents now, but in October, residents will have to start paying for them, 50 euros per test. That is in hopes of convincing people to get the vaccination instead of getting regularly tested. 

There are many French people who are upset about the requirement. There are even some restaurants and bars resisting. They don't ask to see the pass or they don't scan them. 

A music fete this summer where our pass sanitaire was screened before we could enter the square.

One cafe owner said "We hate to ask our friends for their pass." Then she hesitated and said, "But a coffee, that's not really a necessity, is it?" And that's the point. You don't have to go out for a coffee. You want to go out for a coffee or for a drink with friends. 

Here in France, we know what it is like to forego those pleasures. From October 30, 2020 through June 9, 2021, restaurants and bars were closed for dine in, whether outside or in. We didn't sit and drink with our friends. No music played in the town squares. We were lucky to wander through markets with our masks firmly in place to buy the necessities -- food only. Clothing and trinkets were not included in the markets. 

Now, it's our turn, the vaccinated, to go out on the town. To raise a glass and celebrate that we have survived the initial phase of a pandemic. 

A kir perhaps

In Esperaza, a town know for its free spirits, the Gendarmes patrol the market, reminding people to keep their masks up firmly over their mouth and nose. 

This picture truly captures Esperaza

Earl and I sat for a coffee one Sunday, listening to music nearby as two guys played the didgeridoos. The waiter came out to take an order of a nearby table. The woman sat smoking a cigarette. The waiter asked for her pass sanitaire. She said she didn't have it. He said he couldn't serve her. She protested, waving her cigarette in the air. No, he insisted and she reluctantly left the outdoor café. Her empty table was quickly snapped up by someone who was vaccinated. 

I heard a French official explain that for a year and a half, he and his daughters had been isolating to avoid the virus and to avoid spreading the virus. Now they have their vaccines. It is their turn to go out to restaurants and movies and music festivals. Those who aren't vaccinated can isolate, staying home to avoid getting Covid. 

A Little Different

 In the grocery store, a man stocking avocados sneezed. "Bless you," I said without thinking.

"Thank you," he replied. It was nothing to him, but I suddenly realized that was something I would never have done in France. First of all, the words are hard to say "à tes souhaits" (“to your wishes”) and they sound to me like "a tissue," which maybe is appropriate. Second, I've never heard a French person say that to anyone in public. 

I suddenly realized, I wasn't in France any longer. 

A sunrise across the golf course as I walked out of Mom and Dad's house in Florida

The morning after we arrived, I walked out the door to go for a run and the man in charge of the roofing project at my parents' house was standing in the yard. "Bonjour," I began to say, then bit back the words. "Morning," I substituted

One night, we cleaned up after dinner and Mom started the dishwasher. I checked my watch. It wasn't 9 p.m. yet, the time we usually start the dishwasher in France because the electricity gets cheaper. I sat in the office for a bit preparing for my classes the next day. Then I heard Mom in the kitchen again. 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Unloading the dishwasher," she said. It hadn't been three hours, the time it takes our dishwasher in France to run. 

"Why does it take so long over there?" she asked when I explained the situation. I wasn't sure. Maybe because the dishwasher heats the water. I've just gotten used to it.

The same with the washing machine. The shortest cycle in France is an hour. Here, the cycle finished in 27 minutes, the dryer goes about 25 minutes and the laundry is finished. And we don't have to wait until night time to start it! It's amazing.

A couple of times, I have caught myself using the word toilet. Of course, that is a word in English, but it's not something we would say when excusing ourselves. "Excuse me, I need to find a toilet," would probably indicate I'm about to get sick rather than that I need to use the bathroom. Bathroom, restroom, I remind myself, but "toilette" is what sticks. 

Me and Earl with Tampa  Bay behind us

Here in the States, stores are open on Sundays and there is traffic, traffic, traffic everywhere. The town where my parents live has a population of about 10,000 people. It leads to another town with 10,000 people, and a six-lane, sometimes going down to 4-lane, road goes from one to the other. It is always busy. As I watch the road, I wonder how we go from Quillan to Carcassonne on a two-lane road, sometimes interspersed with four lanes. The traffic on this six-lane road is fast and aggressive. 

The only thing real about Covid here, other than the more than half a million deaths, is the people wearing masks. Otherwise, everything is open, business as usual. Except for Starbucks, which is only open at the drive through, and Trader Joe's which counts the number of people going in to limit customers in the store. We're in Florida now. Soon we'll be driving north toward Ohio. I don't anticipate things will be very different, except maybe no outdoor dining because of the cold.

It's a real jolt to see life going on as normal in the States after France has been in lockdown or in curfew with restaurants closed since October. I understand now why the virus has continued to spread. 

Living in Quarantine

The events in France happened quickly, as I'm sure they have all over the world. Restaurants and bars were closed on Saturday night. Then word came that President Macron would make a speech Monday night.
I'm generally a Macron fan, but I think he botched things by announcing that he would make a speech and not giving people the details. That caused a panic on Monday that filled all the groceries and will probably cause a spike in coronavirus cases.
On Monday around noon as I was teaching, Earl came upstairs to say that the rumor was Macron was quarantining everyone starting at 8 p.m. and no one would be allowed out even to get food. We tried to logically think whether this could happen. It didn't seem right, but we didn't know. Would they deliver food to people in little boxes like when the train is delayed?
Grace, Jack and I had been planning to go to LeClerc, a Walmart-type store with groceries and many other goods, when I finished teaching because Jack needed some IT supplies and the only stores open were groceries. I didn't think it would be bad, because I hadn't seen widespread panic in France.
But the announcement of a coming announcement with no one knowing what would be said sent everything into overdrive.
The parking spots were few and the shopping carts were fewer.
We agreed to separate, I went to get some staples while Jack and Grace went to the tech section of the store. There was toilet paper. Noodles were completely gone, but I was able to find several boxes of soup -- they do boxes instead of cans here.
The only onions were red onions, which Grace is allergic to so I couldn't get onions. I found some chocolate bars (priorities) and headed back past long lines that stretched from the cashiers at the front to the middle of the store, line after line of people.
I had somehow missed the paper towels and I was retracing my steps. When I found them I started toward the front of the store knowing Grace and Jack had gotten in line and saved a place in the mass of people.
Perhaps because I was not near the grocery section, but down near the beauty products, I found a line with only two people in front of me and I stopped moving. Grace and Jack were in a longer line and came to join me.
The picture of the people in line doesn't begin to show the craziness,

I don't know why the lines were so much worse farther down the line of cashiers. 

but as we saw all the people clustered together waiting to pay, we predicted that many people were exposed to the virus that day, and that's where Macron went wrong. If he'd let us know we will be allowed to go out for food during the quarantine, people wouldn't have panicked.

We also noticed that there were people in line, at least two that we saw, buying trees.

People in line buying trees because "quarantine."

Who says, "well, it's going to be a quarantine so I better buy a tree?"
That night, Macron announced the quarantine. People had to stay home unless they were going to the grocery store, the doctor, the pharmacy, to take care of someone who cannot take care of themselves, or to exercise alone. And if they were out doing any of these things, they needed to carry a paper called an "attestation."
I made a joke about "papers, please" as in Nazi Germany. And the next morning as I headed out on a run, my French neighbor asked if I had heard the news?
I said I had and he went on a bit of a rant about "papers to run, papers to eat, papers to go to the grocery!" I could tell he was not happy about the situation.
I said perhaps it would make the situation better and he gave a French shrug.
Tuesday, our first day in quarantine, was kind of normal except the builders didn't come, leaving us with a ceiling that is boarded for drywall but not mudded yet, and walls with support beams and no boards. It may be weeks before they return so we have arranged things as well as we can.
I taught from 9:30 - 2 and then had to work on my online class for the university, so it was just another work day for me.
Earl went to the butcher and said that the small grocery store in town was only allowing in two people at a time. The post office wasn't taking any mail, so Earl wasn't able to mail his absentee ballot to vote in Florida's primary.
Our friend Derrick, a loquacious Irishman, wondered how he would stand being quarantined. I suggested that he text me when he heads to the market and we could stand in line together, but I guess that defeats the purpose.
Grace, Jack Earl and I had dinner together and played cards. Jack and I lost 10-9 so it was a close match with no one feeling they were slaughtered.
I went for a regular run this morning. These horses seemed to know about the quarantine as they both stared at me, wondering if I had my papers, no doubt.

Today we spent some time cleaning our small yard, pulling greenery that has decided to grow in what was once a concrete patio or in the cracks of our house.
As I was sweeping, I found two empty snail shells and a Bueno Kinder wrapper.

Sweeping up in the garden

Earl is busy tackling the "cozy room" which has become filled with construction debris as we continue to work on our house.
After a few loads of laundry, Grace and I settled on the veranda with some sweet drinks -- menthe a l'eau.

Mint syrup and water, plus Grace's knitting.

No one wants to be quarantined, but hopefully it slows down the virus, and we're lucky to be in a warm environ today where we can sit in the sun and sip green drinks the day after St. Patrick's Day.
How bout you? Has your life changed since the virus arrived?

Life Under Lockdown in China -- From a Child's Eyes

I teach English to Chinese kids on the computer. Each day, I get to peek into their homes and talk to the kids.

Me teaching at a friend's house at the end of January. 

Some of them have very limited English skills and others can elaborate on what is going on since they have been quarantined in their apartments at the end of January. Not just students in WuHan, the starting point of the Coronavirus, but people all over China have been hunkered down, required to shelter in place since their winter holidays, before Chinese New Year.
Think about that! Many of the children, who live in apartments, have not stepped outside for nearly six weeks.
As I waited for Sam, a regular student of mine, I saw a note that his 11th birthday was approaching.
"Sam, is it your birthday?" I asked when he appeared.
"Tomorrow," he said grinning.
I knew I had to tread carefully. I couldn't ask about a party because he was isolated from all his friends.
"Will you celebrate with your mom and dad?" I asked. "Will mom bake you a cake?"
He blinked a few times then said, looking down, "My mom is a doctor."
And I realized that Sam's mom would not be there for his birthday because she is out on the front lines, unable to return to her family and risk bringing the virus home to them.
About four weeks into the isolation period, I noticed a string of male students trying to hide hair cuts. Apparently four weeks is the amount of time that parents can stand to let their sons' hair grow before taking matters into their own hands.
Kevin tugged on bangs that rose high above his eyebrows. "My mom cut my hair," he whined.
"It's okay," I assured him.
"It's not."
At the time, he didn't know that it would have weeks to grow before anyone in China would see it.
Another regular student, Patrick, who had sported a bowl cut of thick black hair, arrived in class with his hands clasped in front of his face and forehead.
"Did your mom cut your hair?" I asked gently to the boy who was obviously upset.
He moved his hands and revealed a bald head.
"My dad shaved it," he said. Patrick is often an annoying student and I had determined to be firm with him about staying on track, but instead I tiptoed around him that day, feeling his wounds.
Some of the students are lucky.
Helen had traveled to the countryside to stay with her grandmother for the winter holidays when the travel ban went into effect. She explained that her grandmother lived on a farm, she had chickens and lots of vegetables canned and stored. Helen could go outside and play, alone, but outside, nevertheless. Until one day when it snowed and her Mom wouldn't let her go outside in the snow because there could be germs in the snow, Helen said.
Other students who traveled for the holidays were not so lucky.
Ethan, a loquacious 6-year-old, lives in Macau, a tropical area in southern China, kind of a Chinese Florida.
When I saw Ethan after the schools had been closed, I asked whether schools were closed in Macau.
"I'm not in Macau," Ethan said. "We came to Beijing for Chinese New Year."
Now he and his family are stuck in Beijing, unable to travel to their home in Macau.
I talked to Ethan earlier this week with more than six weeks isolated in Beijing. "When can you return to Macau?" I asked him.
"Maybe April," he said. "I think I should be able to go to Macau now!"
"I wish you could," I agreed with him.
"At least you're healthy," I said to Ethan, and I say that  to each child I teach when we talk about the quarantines that they are under.
I wonder how this quarantine will change their lives. Will the school systems change? Will the parents change what is expected of their children each day? They are all overachievers who rarely find time to play or watch TV, instead focusing on academic pursuits.
For six weeks, they've had abbreviated studies. They've drawn pictures and played games with their siblings or parents. They've watched some TV or played video games.
This virus may change their entire outlook.
Or, they might work harder than ever, cancelling summer vacation to catch up.