The Minister of Health in person recognizes this, “in France, a new stage in the epidemic has been reached and we are now going to stage 2 (out of a total of 3, editor’s note): the virus is circulating on our territory and we have to curb its spread. “ Note: do not shake hands to avoid its spread, explained Olivier Véran on a visit to Crépy-en-Valois (Oise), where the first Frenchman who died from infection was teaching.
Since the end of January, 57 patients with Covid-19 disease have been identified in France. For now, the death toll is two dead (a 60-year-old French teacher whose death was announced on Wednesday and an 80-year-old Chinese tourist), twelve healings and forty-three hospitalized patients. A Defense Council and then an exceptional Council of Ministers on the coronavirus will be organized this Saturday morning.
One week in a small apartment with a 6 year old child
In the meantime, and they are not officially counted, many French people are confined to their homes. Because they have rubbed shoulders with the sick or have returned from China and Italy. This is the case of Julien, a teacher from Fontenay-aux-Roses in the Hauts-de-Seine. With his son Armand, 6 years old, he spent the first week of the February holidays in Turin, in Piedmont. “It was not one of the regions affected by the coronavirus at the very beginning”, remembers the father. Besides, on their return to France on February 17, Italy was not yet affected. Father and son spend their second week of vacation like anyone else, going out, playing with friends, etc. “On the first day of school, only Lombardy and Venetia were concerned. So I went to give my lessons, my son went to school”, says Julien again.
It was Tuesday 25, when he went to work, that Julien discovered that Piedmont is now considered to be a risk zone. His headmaster confirmed what he feared: “he told me not to come to work and to go home“.
A good student, Julien picks up his son and goes home. After a good hour of waiting with the toll free number set up by the authorities, the verdict falls, we must confine ourselves. “We are caught between the precautionary principle and reality, because on our return we lived normally, with my wife, our friends, without confining ourselves.”
“We play, we watch DVDs, we do the homework that the teacher sends by email”
Since Julien is in contact with his general practitioner by email. “We wash our hands regularly, we take our temperature twice a day and we try to go out as little as possible. At the end of the morning, _if time permits, we will breathe in the woods, at times when we are not likely to meet someone_. “ It’s that with a 6-year-old child in an apartment, it’s sometimes complicated. The rest of the day is very routine, explains the father again: “we get up, we play, we work for an hour on the homework that the teacher sends by email, we eat, we watch a DVD, we taste, we play again and then we have dinner, we shower and sleep”, laughs the teacher, who recognizes that after five days, “the days are starting to get long”.
In all this, it is mom who supplies. She, who was not in Italy with them, was expelled from the family home as a precaution. “She lives with her mom and does some shopping for us which she puts at the door. We say a word from afar but I miss her”, Julien smiles again.
The ordeal will soon end. Monday will be 14 days that the father and the son returned from Italy. At the moment everything is fine, they show no signs of illness. They will finally be able to resume the course of their lives.
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