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“Your Papers, M’sieur”
We got the following e-mail from British friends who live in France, very near St. Emilion. Requirements there are much more draconian than we have been subjected to in the US.
We have to have paper attestations filled out: name, address, date of birth, and only one of five allowed reasons to travel can be selected, one person in the car, and then the form is signed and dated. Six days ago, that was revamped to be signed by the date and the time stated, as outings can be for no longer than one hour. Just to be clear, when Steve cycles to the village early for the bread he must have this with him. We have moved to the app that the police can scan, but again it needs to be altered to reflect the time, etc., each time you go out.
Shopping is a nightmare, as I am supposed to stay here. I am allegedly high-risk, so we tried the web-serviced “Drive” collection system operated by French supermarkets. There are now no delivery systems here and, actually, the dreadful website for the collection system would have had you tearing out your hair – I think we are barely sane. Using it was a nightmare as the search engine was not very good and who ever coded up the products should have been fired.
So, we spent literally hours organizing a weekly shop only to find that trying to “check out” was almost impossible. The site crashed four or five times during the two days of trying. This was mainly when they were trying to allocate slots for collection. They have an area looking like a petrol station where you pull into a terminal. You scan your order confirmation then someone brings out your order. Naturally the system is brilliant for the lockdown situation and social distancing, but the increase in usage went through the roof and their IT systems just aren’t coping. We had another disastrous try and then finally one that did not make us lose the will to live! I conclude that others have given up trying, but this is still for collection in a week’s time.
We have interaction with friends all over with Facetime, email, etc., but not closer than across-the-road chats with our neighbors. Unlike in the UK, the Presidential edict is the same as a law and heavy fines have been imposed on those who break the rules. You can go out for walks but not in groups and, again, with your attestation and for no longer than an hour. Very few shops are allowed to be open, so only essential services are working. We are just very grateful we have a very large garden so we can at least sit outside in the warm sun – it could be worse.
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Published in General
And we thought we had it bad!! That’s obscene. Especially the grocery shopping situation–yikes!
I’d prefer that information not be disseminated here. It might give our governor ideas.
Yes. Yesterday I found out that our local Walmart won’t let anyone into the store that is not wearing a mask. I thought that was a little much, particularly since there aren’t so many masks available. But at least it makes some sense. (Unlike the governor of Michigan who makes stores rope off sections that contain items that she deems “non-essential,” but is still happy to sell state lottery tickets.)
At least in the US, so far, we don’t have cops stopping your car and asking for your papers.
We do it all the time. It’s called a “license check” . . .
The lastest National Review has an article by a guy stuck in Paris. His wife was recently asked for her papers, and she had them. Someone they know wasn’t so lucky and was fined on the spot.
I don’t think things were that tight when the Nazis were occupying France.
Our Goobernor hasn’t gone full paranoia shutdown yet, but he did issue a stay-at-home executive order with NINE exceptions. One of them is:
Yes, that’s why we call him Goober.
#2 The Reticulator
Precisely why I’m urging that — in clamoring for economic “re-opening” — folks please clamor for an “iterative and incremental” approach, rather than insisting on a “big-bang” rollback to the status quo ante.
We still simply don’t know nearly enough about the virus, so I wouldn’t rule out a scenario — in the wake of a big-bang re-opening — where an unusually massive number of ostensibly *healthy* Americans get felled by the virus, to the extent that there is an “unexpected”/“we should have known” spike in fatalities.
For example:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/04/researchers-report-wuhan-coronavirus-could-attack-immune-system-like-hiv-by-targeting-protective-cells/
If, God forbid, such a scenario were to occur, restrictive decrees might also see a terrible resurgence, with all the would-be tyrants feeling amply vindicated.
Those of us favoring re-opening (to say nothing of civil liberties restoration) might not have an argumentation leg to stand on in such circumstances, even with compelling supportive evidence to hand.
Please — let’s clamor for iterative and incremental. Calls for immanentizing the eschaton are poor risk management.