Slowly emerging

Belgium 1 Minute

It’s official. Belgium will start to slowly emerge from lockdown on Monday with phase 1A.

This means a gradual return for work for those who were unable to work form home and fabric stores being allowed to open. We’ll need the fabric for the masks.

Handily, though, train stations across the country will be selling masks instead of snacks from their vending machines from Monday. So there won’t be any excuse to defy the new rules around wearing masks in stations and on public transport.

The rules around social gatherings are also being very slightly loosened and, in Brussels, a contact tracing test phase will be launched. The aim (in both Brussels and Flanders) is to have this fully operational by 11th May which is the provisional start date of phase 1B.

While this is a positive step, not much is changing for us yet. The schools are still closed and I will continue to work from home. I shall, however, do my patriotic duty and eat more chips.

Published by Paul

Reader of books, watcher of films, player of games. British father of three, now living in Belgium and making a living from building interfaces.

Published

6 thoughts on “Slowly emerging”

  2. The real question is whether the wearing of masks has been strictly enforced. Some drivers comply with the guidelines and others have let on passengers to the point that the bus looks like a weird housewarming party.

    How do you feel about possibly returning your children to school?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Primary schools did re-open in June for four days a week and it seems to have gone reasonably well.

      Each class was a separate bubble — so the children within a class bubble could behave as normal with each other, but were not allowed to mingle with other classes. Locally, this meant that the school imposed staggered start and end times as well.

      If I remember rightly, secondary schools had the option of re-opening or not. The one that my eldest goes to decided not to. Not unreasonably as the last two weeks of June are given over to end of year exams, all of which were cancelled this year.

      The infection rate has started going up again, following the phase 4 easing of restrictions at the end of June and some of the restrictions have been tightened as a result of this. We will have to wait and see if the schools do re-open in September as planned — I’m hoping they do.

      Like

Comments are closed.