«Corona was far away in the first wave»

Series: Families and Corona worldwide - Part 8

Elke and Jesús have lived in Madrid with their two children Marta, 7, and Theo, 5, since 2015. Elke is self-employed in the online marketing sector and Jesús is a strategy consultant.

What is the current situation with the coronavirus in your country?

A state of emergency (estado de alarma) has now been declared in Spain for the second time. After a complete lockdown from mid-March to mid-June, when people were initially only allowed to leave the house for shopping and then only for one hour a day at certain times of the day, masks are now compulsory in public spaces. In addition, the curfew applies at night and the limit for private meetings or in public spaces is six people. This is regulated independently of households and means that we are not allowed to meet up with a second family because the maximum number of people would then be exceeded. However, restaurants and shops are open with a reduced number of customers. Museums and gyms are also open with an adapted hygiene concept.

We therefore mostly keep to ourselves after school and only occasionally invite individual children to play in the garden, fortunately the weather in Madrid still allows this.

However, the children go to school as normal and there are even selected extracurricular activities in the afternoons, such as football or other outdoor sports. From the age of six, the children have to wear masks for the entire school day. However, they get used to this incredibly quickly and so the school day runs almost normally.

What is the work situation like for you and your husband?

I work freelance and always from home. My husband has only been going to the office in exceptional cases since September, and he also works from home most of the time.

How is childcare organised?

School and extracurricular activities have continued as normal so far, so the children are at school every day until 2pm and we take turns with childcare in the afternoon. This even allows us to be more flexible, as childcare in the afternoons used to be my sole responsibility. Now that my husband is at home, he can take over this too.
Of course, this also means we have to work again in the evenings.
During the total lockdown, the additional childcare and homeschooling while working from home was an extreme burden because everything had to happen at the same time. That pushed us to our limits at times.
We therefore hope that future measures will be designed to keep schools open for as long as possible.

How close is Corona? Have you been in isolation or quarantine yourself?

Strangely enough, Corona was very far away for us personally during the first wave. We didn't know anyone in our immediate circle who had coronavirus and we had only heard about deceased relatives in more distant circles. However, due to the total lockdown and the extremely high workload with homeschooling and work at the same time, we were also in contact with very few people. You also get to know a lot less.

Now everything is much closer. Close friends were infected, classmates of our children in quarantine. Personally, however, we have been spared so far. We haven't had to go into quarantine yet, but the prospect of a 10-day quarantine after our three-month complete lockdown can't scare us that much either.

Is vaccination already an issue for you?

The vaccination has not yet been authorised in Spain, but of course there is great hope that the vaccination will bring some normality back in the foreseeable future.

Christmas is just around the corner: do you already know how you're going to celebrate?

As we live very far away from all our family members, we will be celebrating Christmas in a very small circle this year. Travelling is not a good idea at the moment. However, we have already made plans to make music together via video conference so that we can still be in contact with our loved ones. And then hopefully we'll make up for the personal time together soon.

How do you experience the situation as a whole: has corona opened new doors for family life or rather caused additional stress?

In general, we're doing quite well. Despite all the stress, we came up with some really great creative projects during the first lockdown that we experienced together as a family. There was hardly any time for such things in our normal everyday lives. We did an incredible amount of handicrafts, rehearsed dances together, came up with theatre plays, organised theme parties for the four of us ...
Of course, this became less and less over time and the longer the lockdown lasted, the more exhausting it became. Nevertheless, the time together was good for us and we got on surprisingly well.

What do you want for 2021?

Although this time was also characterised by some positive things for us personally, the dramatic overall situation, especially here in Spain, and the uncertainty were of course always very present. Many, many families have lost loved ones. The lockdown in a confined space has put many people in dramatic financial situations and this knowledge has been a great burden and a major concern for us.

We therefore very much hope that the vaccination will bring a quick return to normality. Above all, we would like to see our families again and be able to hug our loved ones once more.

Nevertheless, we would also like to keep some small rituals from this time.
Read about the situation in England in part 9 of our series Families in everyday coronavirus life around the world. You can read all the family portraits published so far here: Families and Corona worldwide.

More about Corona:

• «Corona vaccination for children: in one year at the earliest»
  What are the latest findings on the role of children in the current coronavirus crisis? And: Can a school require a corona test? Prof Dr Christoph Aebi provides important answers.

• «No one can be forced to have the coronavirus vaccination»
  The announced vaccination against corona brings hope for many people, but at the same time many fears arise. Franziska Sprecher, Director of the Centre for Health Law and Management in Healthcare, talks about mandatory vaccination for specific groups of people and the question of whether schools can require vaccination.

• How much coronavirus can parents put their children through?
  The second wave of coronavirus is here and every day we are confronted with news of new infections and new guidelines. How much should parents expect their children to be exposed to? And how do you react when the virus is really close; affecting friends, relatives or the child itself? Adolescent psychologist Nadine Messerli-Bürgy provides answers.
• Coronavirus dossier
  In this dossier, all articles containing relevant topics for families are collected on an ongoing basis.