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It has been called the four-person puzzle. If you could only invite the same four family or friends to dinner for a few weeks of coronavirus blockade, who would you choose? That is the dilemma that the Belgian government has given its citizens as it moves to the next phase to ease restrictions on daily life.
Starting Sunday, each home in Belgium can invite up to four guests to your home. Two groups of four people form a “crown bubble”, who can visit each other’s houses. No one else is allowed in the inner social circle. The concept, which is also being discussed by the British government, opens up the largest social minefield of coronavirus blockade.
Belgium Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès announced the plan last week, after being accused of prioritizing the economy over people’s wishes to reunite with friends and family. Allowing social bubbles to start on Sunday, Mother’s Day in Belgium and much of continental Europe is no accident.
“The physical separation from those we love in some cases has become unbearable,” Wilmès said, but visitors are told not to hug or exchange the typical three-kiss greeting. The government expects guests to be kept 1.5 meters away and suggests that people gather in gardens or terraces when possible. Authorities say it is impossible to monitor politics, so they are confident in people’s sense of civic duty.
Belgians, especially large families or those in which one or both parents have remarried, are already contemplating their choices. “It is terribly complicated. I understand the spirit, but the lyrics [of the law] it’s completely impossible, “said Anne, a 45-year-old chief financial officer, who preferred not to give her last name.
She lives in Brussels with her husband and two teenage daughters. “Do we choose a complete family of four of whom are our only contact and we are their only contact? That means I cannot allow any of my children’s friends to visit them. “
Her priority is to see her teenage son, who lives with his father and has asthma, which means that he has been isolated from the rest of the family. But she does not want to separate her two daughters from her friends. “I don’t intend to carry a flip chart of who’s seeing who,” he said. “I think it is more important to enter the spirit than the letter.”
There has been a lot of confusion about the letter of the policy. “The problem is that the way the idea was communicated was not very clear from the start,” said Karen Phalet, a professor of psychology at the Catholic University of Leuven. Many people did not realize that the four guests must have come from the same home.
Epidemiologists advising the government chose number four because it matches the current ability to keep track of contacts if someone gets sick. Pairing two households also reduces the risk multiplier effect that would be obtained by allowing for a more varied mix, but epidemiological models do not fit with the way people socialize in real life.
“If a family can have contacts with a family for Mother’s Day, we have to make a choice, whether it’s the mother or the mother-in-law,” Phalet said. “It is a difficult choice for some families. Are children’s friends? Are parents or grandparents the priority?
She says the idea of connecting just two homes is not the way people normally socialize, and that raises questions about whether politics can work: “If the distance between what people normally do and the restriction is too great, I think it’s a little risky. “
Belgium’s “crown bubble” is similar to the German approach, where people from two separate households can meet starting this weekend under the new relaxation of the country’s blockade.
Only one person per household was able to previously meet another person from another household.
In theory, now two families or two couples can meet, as long as they observe the 1.5 meter physical spacing rule and use face covers if they are outside.
It has not been specified whether a family can be reunited with one family on one day and another family on the next day. The assumption is that this is the case, but it has not yet been clarified. These new rules will be in force until June 5, the date on which they will have been revised.
In Spain, which has been under one of the strictest blockades in Europe, the government has said that groups of up to 10 people will be able to meet in private homes or outdoors starting Monday, but only in areas of the country that have received permission. to move to the second phase of the lock de-escalation plan.
Around 51% of people in Spain, including those in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, will go to the next phase on Monday. The Madrid and Barcelona regions, two of the most affected areas, will remain in the preliminary phase for the time being.
Back in Belgium, homes have been deciding. Phalet, who specializes in child psychology, says she will prioritize her children’s social life over her own. She thinks that school closings are really difficult for children everywhere. “We know [social networks] they are very important, not only for their well-being, but in terms of normative contexts. If they meet other colleagues, they can also learn from each other ”
On Mother’s Day, Phalet and her siblings will meet their 81-year-old mother through Zoom.
For now, the main message from the Belgian government is that people should stay home as much as possible. “I hope that when contract tracking is in place we can regain some of social life very soon in a responsible way,” Phalet said. “But we are not there yet.”
Additional reports by Kate Connolly in Berlin and Sam Jones in Madrid
