We are living unprecedented times. It can be scary, uncertain, and even dramatic. Yet we, the human kind, will come out victorious. Many lessons will be learnt by our countries and our world to prevent this from happening again. But it is up to us to define what tomorrow’s world should be like at the individual level, but also in our relationships, at work, in politics because this virus is turning our world upside down. A wise man once told me “when there is chaos, there is opportunities”, here is our chance!
Like most of you, the four of us are on lockdown. Indeed, we arrived in Noumea, my homeland, on March 14, 2020. While initially there was no confirmed cases of covid19, the government was taking preventative measures to protect the population. On March 18, 2020 the first 2 cases were imported from France by a couple on honeymoon. Three days later, the first local case was confirmed which made everyone freak out and a lockdown was declared for 15 days.
New Caledonia (NC) has roughly 100 ICU beds for a population of 271,000 so not only is containing the virus preferable but it is mandatory because its spread could lead to an overpopulation of ICU very quickly. 48,000 people on the island are vulnerable (i.e. suffer of long-term disease). If only 1% of the vulnerable were to catch the virus, the number of ICU beds would be short by 400%.
Floating in the Pacific, far from motherland France (in Europe), New Caledonia usually relies on its neighbors Australia and New Zealand to evacuate patients in case of shortages or specific interventions (my grandpa and uncle both had heart surgery done in Sydney). The difficulty with this global crisis is that our neighbors are now very reluctant to welcome such patients because they need all the beds they have for their own looming covid19 fight.
Safe is better than sorry. Given NC’s infrastructure and remoteness, you now understand why the government put us on lockdown very early on.
As a preventative measure, restaurants started closing at 6pm on March 19, 2020 Lana’s birthday, but we had the chance to eat out one last time to celebrate.
In the morning, we had gone to the aquarium in anticipation of an upcoming lockdown. Pre-lockdown time seems like a frivolous one now… a whole another era, doesn't it?
In the afternoon, Lana blew her 5 candles with the family, respecting social distancing.
That’s the last time we saw everyone, that until this whole situation clears up.
The day before, we had visited my mom at the hospice and I am glad we did so, because visits stopped the next day (and during our visit, we were under immense scrutiny given that we had just traveled; they confined my mom in her room for 5 days after that, until she was tested to the covid19 and result turned out negative).
The lockdown started on March 24, 2020 at 12:00am.
We are surviving, like all of you currently in the same situation. Some days are better than others but several things keep us going.
First, connecting with our friends, virtually of course. We have a time difference of 9h with France and 15h with the East Coast of US/Canada so mornings and evenings work well.
Second, on lockdown, it’s easy to lose track of time so we established a routine. Meals give the drumbeat of our days. Mornings are dedicated to homework. And we are taking advantage of all this time to catch up on what we enjoy the most such as learning, reading, watching series, creating, growing or just procrastinating… All this, while spending quality time together and without stepping on each other’s toes.
Third, our daily outing is a breather (allowed for 1 hour in a 1km radius around the house with a sworn statement and ID, in case the police controls like they did today). We can walk to the sea side in the blowing wind and pretend like nothing is happening… we are outside taking a walk. The girls can run and burn up energy without driving us crazy, so this is a plus 😃. Around us, frangipani, bougainvillea, jasmine, coconut trees – so many colors and fragrances reminding us that life continues, making our burden a little lighter.
In New Caledonia, the fall season just started on March 20 but temperatures are still warm. Even though fall is here, hurricanes have been going around though. When we arrived, the west coast of the island was on first level of alert for Gretel. This past week-end, a category 5 hurricane, Harold, was running close to the north-east and devastated Vanuatu.
But we feel lucky to be here on my land to spend this difficult time. A good friend of mine, that I have known forever, lent us her apartment that she is renovating to move in October. It is spacious, has everything we need for this lockdown. And it is walking distance to shops and sea side.
Here, there are currently 18 covid19 cases, and it's stable (no new cases for the past 7days). Lockdown was extended by a week, until April 13. Hopefully, we can get out of lockdown quickly to regain our freedom of movement and why not do some tourism around the island.
As for continuing our trip, things are very unpredictable right now and we have a feeling it will be for a good while. We were supposed to go to French Polynesia on March 28, Easter island on March 31 and Chile on April 6. None of that is happening of course. The airspace is closed and our flights are on-hold. We will wait for the air to clear up to make decisions on whether to pursue our trip and where, safely!
Right now, we are living up the day, saving lives by staying home because this is the only effective way we can succeed against this microscopic, sneaky virus.
But let’s not forget that there are workers taking risks for all of us in this crisis, working in the medical field but also in grocery stores and other essential services. Their dedication is exemplary and I do not miss to thank them every time (albeit some of them might not have a choice…). They are the real heroes of this pandemy!
Told ya, we're surviving!
Stay safe, stay home!
❤️ The Elsankaris ❤️
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