The virus crisis

BRUSSELS, 2020

You certainly know the story of this virus that has come to interfere in a very ungrateful way in everyone’s life. The one that was initially named after a beer (like many other diseases, by the way) and was then thrown into the public square in French-speaking countries to find out whether to use LE or LA to designate it. In any case, we’ll remember the name LA Covid-19 since we’re talking about Coronavirus Disease.

So, let’s skip the presentations. We are here in Brussels, the Belgian and European capital. The government has taken the decision to lock down its population in the face of the worrying evolution of the virus. This is March 18, 2020. European countries are gradually closing their economies to the outside world, but also to the inside world. Life has come to a stop. After more than two months of lockdown, Belgians (like many of their neighbors) are back to a more normal life. But that was without counting on the shattering return of the virus. Since September, epidemiologists have been expressing concern again. As you will have understood, at the very moment I am writing these lines, we are on the verge of experiencing for the second time what no one would have imagined for a single second: a RE-confinement.