I'd criticize you if I wasn't so slow to answer them myself. So don't worry and take your time!

@ J are you going to be teaching again next week? Seems like that's when things are going back to semi-normal in Belgium right? Or maybe that's just elementary school, can't say I'm completely up to date on the situation there.

Pev's right in that France is being divided into different 'colours' depending on the severity of the infection. I'm still in a red zone so not all that much is changing for me. Oh well. Can't say I mind too much. I mean it sucks to not be able to cross the border and visit my family but they seem to be fine anyway, so can't complain! In a way us gamers have been preparing for this shit our entire lives haha. Two months in without seeing anyone (irl) and still sane, I guess it's safe to assume I can do this another few months if I have to.

Normally speaking i'll have to teach 2 hours in one class. Only 6th and 7th grade are returning for one day the first 2 weeks, i have mainly 5th year students so i'm lucky.

In elementary schools it's 1, 2 (both 4 days a week or so) and 6 (for 2 days) that are going back. My kids are in third and fifth so they can stay home.

I have a similar feeling about the 'isolation issues' Ox. I don't miss the social interaction that much as many others seem to. Rules are getting a bit looser now, but even in my close family i notice people not following rules as they should. Like my sister-in-law buying a bike for her son in a bike shop that wasn't even supposed to be open. Oh yeah, that's really important now, a bike, so he can go to school, soccer club, friends .. oh wait.

If i lose my sanity, it will be because i'm swamped with work, if you take this preteaching/home teaching thing serieus, you're busy 7 days a week, and i seem to be working full days most of times as well. And then you get messages from our principals that really show they have absolutely no idea how hard you're working. Of course i could be slacking off and not giving a shit like several of my collegues, but that doesn't work for me. Imagine being a physical education teacher nowadays, they have NO work. None. Nada. But I have to do meetings and inform parents about things we discussed because I teach an important subject. Yeah that makes sense, give the guy that already has a lot of work more work. He'll like that.

Gah now i'm frustrated again.

Shiny and I are still fine. She's still going to work once a week (maybe twice because of emergencies). I'm still just working from home. My job sucks balls and they're forcing me to work 10-12 hours a day during the week, and they expect me to work on the weekends as well. Fuckheads. So sick of that job. We get grocery deliveries about every 2 weeks. We have 2 refrigerators and a freezer that are mostly full of meat, rice and vegetables, so even if everything fell apart we'd be fine for months.

And every day, I'm disappointed in our government. Fucking morons. History will judge them harshly, but only after they manage to kill more Americans than WWII. It makes me sick.

Yeah man, looking at the US numbers and response is pretty depressing. I think up until now Trump got away with being a bumbling buffoon who doesn't take any responsibility for anything, but now the chips are down and he clearly is just wildly flailing. I mean jesus, the man keeps arguing with people on Twitter, talks more about his reelection chances and how the crisis affects it than how it affects the people, is lying outright about the numbers and is constantly undermining the opinions and statements of those around him who are there because of their expertise. What an utter, utter shit show. And that in the richest, most powerful country in the world. Incredible. I'm hoping things will take a turn for the better soon.

Looks like most European countries (except the UK and Russia, if you can call that Europe) are finally over the peak now and slowly and gradually reopening. Over here in France I can finally be outside as much as I want again within a 100 km radius of my home and observing social distancing obviously. Face masks are mandatory on public transport and in public spaces (train stations etc) and highly recommended in other places where lots of people gather like stores. From my last trip to the shop it seems like around 80% of people are wearing face masks in the supermarkets now so it's reaching critical social mass let's say. I received several reusable masks from the local government last week so I guess I'll be a mask guy from now on too. Parks are opened in some areas (not mine) and some children are going back to school. Borders still closed for anything but emergencies and necessity though.

Everyone still ok otherwise? @ J, how did the first week of teaching again go? Must be strange to teach with a mask on...

Well we ended up having our 6th and 7th years coming to school on several days. So i'll be going on Monday, not sure yet how that will go. We might have face shields, not sure yet if they got there in time. That will be easier to teach with.

Good luck man! Will be weird but it still beats the distance teaching, judging by what you wrote before.

Well that continues for the majority of my classes, so fuck me

Hahaha ok sorry to hear that then. At least the school year is almost over I guess...or are there plans to extend the school year into the summer in Belgium? I haven't followed it very closely.

That was said a couple of times, and technically schools can take the first week of July for meetings & delibarations of students. But ours will end 30th of June.

Today our fabulous (*cough) minister of Education, Ben Weyts, made a plan to speed up the return of all students. So starting second of June, they want almost everyone to be able to come to school, halftime for <12 years, without real social distancing measures even. For older pupils it will be a day or so.

So school has been open for 1 (!) week now, meaning in a lot of cases that pupils have come to school for 1 day. And all of a sudden, all plans, precaution measures, etc. can be thrown in the garbage bin. I don't get it. If i were responsible for safety in our school, i'd probably kill myself, knowing all that work has been for nothing.

Yeah man...I thought they were supposed to wait for at least two weeks to see the effect of the partial reopening of schools? Whatever happened with that?

I mean to be fair, from all the data I've seen in countries that have reopened earlier and more completely (Germany, Austria, Denmark etc) it does seem like the combination of the summer arriving and the social distancing measures (and others) is having an effect. Numbers aren't going up again in any of these places yet so it's likely they'll stay pretty stable over the summer. So from that perspective I can see why there is reason for optimism from the government, but then Belgium isn't Germany. We both know that people are 'plantrekkers' so things are likely to go at least a little bit to shit. So yeah, all very strange. My niece is very happy she can go back to kindergarten though. She saw her older brother go back to (primary) school so was a bit jealous of him.

Anyhoo good luck man. Teachers are getting fucked again, but that's nothing new I suppose. You'd think this crisis would make the government appreciate the work and importance of medical and educational personnel more, but it's not looking very likely. I don't know why they haven't announced a one-time tax break in 2020 for people on the front line of this stuff, or something similar. Whether it's a teacher, nurse, food delivery guy or a courier. They are taking the brunt of the risk on behalf of all of us.

Hah, no such thing has nor ever will exist. They only appreciate ATM because they think it's the direct line of Ministry of Finance.

We have another "oooh government ignored lockdown" scandal going on. This time it's ok though coz it's one of Boris' mates. So it's fine. I mean ok technically lockdown is less strict now but honestly, a 260 mile trip was really necessary? I don't think so.

Seeing a lot of stuff recently about trials. I think there are vaccine trials going on right now, plus trials to inject blood from people who've recovered into those with it, see if the antibodies help. They're also doing a trial on keyworkers giving some placebos, some that malaria medicine to determine if it really is worth the risks of the side effects.

Parents area of France is pretty eased off but I think they're still supposed to be socially distancing. They're not. My parents are but others are just being stupid with it so they're still pretty much hiding at home when they need to and all that's really changed for them is not having to print out their little certificate to say they're allowed to be out and about.

It feels like, yet again, Boris wants to be Trump. Seems government don't want responsibility. Our schools are letting some reception, year 1 and year 6 kids back. Which seems odd to me, ok year 6, they can understand but the younger ones will just want to continue as normal. Plus they're discussing that it would have to be done so only half the class (or even a quarter) are in each day so all you're doing is disrupting what people have turned into a routine now 1 day a week. But on top of that, no one is forcing schools to do anything, they can decide. So local councils will have their own guidance, but each school can follow or ignore that as they like. If a council says no, we don't want schools open, but one head says they're opening up theirs, what do you do?

Don't forget about Neil Gaiman, who literally traveled across half the world (from NZ) and then drove from London to Scotland so he could be in quarantine in his cottage in the hebrides. Clearly there is one rule for all of us and then there's another rule for the rich and the famous...it's disgusting. And yeah Pev the UK is still in a pretty bad place compared to the rest of Europe, so it does feel like they're rushing things a bit. I think a lot of it is the brexit thing - Johnson can't afford an economic hangover right now when he's in talks with the EU which (overall) seems to have handled things somewhat better.

It looks like covid is subsiding all over Europe though...and that it may have a seasonal element to it after all. Which is good news for now I guess? Ironically it is slowing down vaccine research as the test subjects aren't in enough danger to catch the disease from the general population anymore as numbers keep going down. Globally speaking Brazil seems to be the new hot spot while the US is still getting hit pretty hard.

@ J how is the mood among your colleagues? What the fuck is the Belgian government doing...2 weeks ago it was still super unsafe and very careful, now all kids have to go back to school without almost any precautions? What the...

Over here things are progressing well and I'm finally in a 'green' zone (like Pev's parents). Which means that they're even reopening bars and restaurants next week! Only the area around Paris is still in a semi lockdown now. But it does feel like people are starting to care less and less about the safety measures. Today I was one of the only people in the store wearing a mask, while a week ago it was still 90% of people. Pretty weird. But meh, it's all the same to me.

Yeah it's weird, like one moment there are several rules about distance, minimum 4 square metres (no don't know how many feet that is ) etc. and then it seems like the next moment all those rules can go overboard. I had a talk with several of our coordinators at school, responsible for planning and such, they're going crazy. And they are exhausted. Like one of them has 5 children at home, oldest being 13, she got TONS of work and in the meantime things keep changing. Don't want to be in her shoes.

Even for me it's annoying and frustrating: i finally managed to plan ahead more than 1 week, now we got a message this week that our students from 5th grade will return to school one day for lessons. I'm actually contemplating to just start the lessonmovie i made and have them watch it the whole hour. In the meantime i can leave the class and relax. It sometimes feels like you're almost drowning in quicksand, barely managing to hold your head above and then they just start jumping on your head.

Ah well, time to start correcting the excercises they uploaded now.

How did it go last week J? Did you survive? Is everyone else still ok?

And not exactly virus-related but Satis do you notice anything from the protests where you live?

Things are still all good on my side...I went for a few long walks through the city the past two weekends (still avoiding public transport) and honestly, it's hard to tell that there's a virus on the loose anymore. Lots and lots of people out and about, mostly in the parks and along the riverside enjoying the sun, and this weekend there were plenty of people in the inner city shopping and going for a drink. Although I will say that there were noticeably less people on the terraces than usual, so I guess it's not completely back to normal yet.

In the city center about 20% of people are wearing masks, I assume because they are going from one shop to the other in which case I'd do the same. But in the parks and along the river it's more like 5% who are wearing masks, because they're outdoors all the time. Fair enough. I don't wear a mask when I'm just walking in the open air either, although I do of course avoid large crowds and keep my distance as much as I can. There's a lot of evidence out there now that transmission outdoors (without close contact) is extremely unlikely so unless you're a risk patient I don't think wearing a mask is necessary. I still put one on every time I enter a store though, but I've started to notice that less and less people are doing that too now. Mmm.

Depending on how the situation is at the border I may go got a short trip to Belgium to pick up some additional stuff next weekend, and to say hi to one of my nephews for his birthday. We'll see.