Friends from Russia sent a photo where everyone got together and talked in a restaurant.
I look and think, it's great, you can't say that somewhere outside the window an epidemic is raging.
It seems to be declining there.
And here in Europe, we still can't.
Strangely enough, tough measures are in effect, but for some reason they do not help.
I don’t even remember the last time I was in a restaurant, in Belgium they closed tightly back in mid-October.
Infection numbers began to decline not so long ago, but then the British strain showed up, and everything started again.
Several schools were closed: one of the parents brought the "crown" from vacation, and the virus dumped about fifty people, not only teachers, but also children, some even showed pronounced symptoms.
In Flanders, they decided to extend the upcoming holidays by a week, but they will have to be spent in Belgium - all tourist trips abroad have been banned, new restrictions are introduced on extracurricular activities for children, and the competitions have been canceled until the end of the year, although they should be held without spectators anyway.
My daughter's coach in rhythmic gymnastics, who has her own school here, called me and said: "How tired of all this, I want to give up everything and go back to Russia, at least there is life there!"
It should have been here too - I remember how people rejoiced at the beginning of vaccination.
But the campaign was curtailed even at the stage of nursing homes - the doses ran out, somewhere there, but not enough.
Europe quarrels with manufacturers, neighbors, threatens with courts, fines, in general, there is a mouse fuss and political bickering for the precious substance.
Although last year Brussels already dreamed of selling the surplus produced to third countries and having its own tasty morsel from this giant market.
The proposal to flee to Russia from restrictions is now received by many here with a bang.
When we were in Strasbourg, a colleague offered a Russian passport to a woman from the press service of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
She laughed for a long time, and then began to ask in more detail, and what we have and how.
They promised to help.
It's not easy for the French.
Everything remains closed, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, fitness centers, cinemas, theaters, museums are closed.
Stores close at 6:00 pm and immediately begin curfews across the country - you can't even go out for a run.
There are exceptions, but few and need to fill out the paper.
Masks are required everywhere and always.
At the same time - whatever they do, things don't go.
The infection rate does not drop below 20 thousand per day.
Everyone was waiting for an extreme measure that week - the announcement of a nationwide quarantine, the third in a row.
TV channels only talked about this, explained, prepared people.
But President Macron did not dare.
Rumor has it that he looked at the Dutch pogroms and changed his mind ahead of Saturday's demonstrations across France.
He now has the generally unenviable position of being cornered.
France could not make its vaccine, the sanitary battle cannot be won, the economic situation in the country is difficult: GDP collapsed by 8.3 percent, a record since the Second World War.
The crisis has affected almost all areas of life.
The number of poor people has increased by a million, not 9 million, but already 10 million.
Temporary unemployment benefits are being cut, tariffs for travel on toll roads, electricity, and gas are raised.
Restaurateurs shout about their plight, their income is zero for a month, and no one exempted them from paying bills and taxes.
And no prospects at least until autumn.
Some decided to open up and receive guests in protest and in violation of current rules.
They promised to send the police to such people, then to deprive them of their license and state aid package for the next month.
People are tired, psychologically difficult.
TV channels talk about how a 45-year-old engineer without a family and without a job shot former colleagues, how students commit suicide (distance learning universities), how the number of suicide attempts among teenagers under 15 has doubled since November.
If schools are closed and children are locked up at home, their mental state is severely degraded, pediatricians warn.
The authorities are looking for an additional one and a half hundred psychologists to help the physicians who are exhausted.
What's the new quarantine?
So Macron came up with a kind of hybrid version, for which he received such a wave of criticism from all sides - from the right, and from the left, and from his own - which is just horror.
They accuse that he is simply wasting time, prolonging the epidemic, the figures are terrible, that by April there will be a million patients a week at such a rate.
The President has decided to close the country's borders for the time being for those traveling from outside the EU.
Within the European Union, all those entering are now required a negative PCR test.
True, who and where will check it?
If they put up posts on the highway, the roads will get stuck in traffic jams from trucks.
Will truck drivers have to do too?
And where, when, how?
There is no clarity yet.
But they promised to deploy additional police officers in the cities so that they more closely monitor the observance of the curfew.
The country is turning into a police state.
This is especially evident during the protests.
Law enforcement officers have a new tactic, which they have been practicing for the third week in a row.
They are leading the protesters in a double cordon.
The first accompanies the column, the second runs parallel along the shop windows.
Black crowds with shields and helmets, a frightening sight.
Previously, their tactics were to minimize contact with rioters and maximize the use of tear gas.
Now, on the contrary, the contact is maximal, any provocation is immediately stopped by a series of blows with truncheons.
Moreover, they beat everyone indiscriminately, whether you are even a journalist who fell under the hot hand, it is your own fault.
They will not apologize, at best they will be pushed and thrown away.
Judging by the way they beat the already lying ones, the policemen are also tired and rip off everything that has boiled in public.
And then they water it with water cannons - in winter, in frost, in the midst of a respiratory epidemic.
And this despite the fact that rallies in France are permitted.
In the Netherlands, too, those who opposed restrictions first came out.
Everything is very strict there: the national quarantine, when everything is closed at all, everyone is at remote work, they sit at home all day with children and teenagers - schools do not work.
Even in the evening they were not allowed to walk, the curfew was from 21:00.
Here are the youth and started a riot.
Shpana, one of them told me he would burn the cops in their vans if they refused to get out.
These are the children who go to a bright European future.
All of this amused them: it was fun to smash windows, rob shops, blow up cans of gasoline so that the fiery mushroom was visible from the neighboring areas, shoot fireworks at the guardians of the law, then run away from them, throwing sticks, stones and bottles.
They thought they could get away with it.
The prosecutor promised prison terms, and the mayors of the cities where the riots took place competed to see who would express their contempt and outrage more clearly.
The action was called criminal violence, the rebels - covid-hooligans, scum from society, shameless thieves.
Belgium, Austria, Italy, Hungary followed.
The same batons, fights with the police, harsh crackdowns, hundreds of people arrested.
But at the same time, one must understand that sanitary restrictions will not go anywhere, which means that the covid riots in Europe may repeat again.
The author's point of view may not be the same as the editorial