Fleeing from a microscopic giant

Who would have known the damage that such a tiny virus could cause? I vividly remember being in my Theories of International Relations class, on a Friday morning, and discussing about the sudden outbreak Wuhan had. If you had told me then that my study abroad program would be cancelled, I would have probably laughed. Never would I have imagined that something that seemed so far away could end my stay at Brussels so abruptly.

The month of March was when we began being bombarded with COVID-19 news alerts, and that was when I realized that we could be pulled out of Europe anytime soon. The issue at that time was that Brussels barely had any cases since they weren’t testing that many people. While France and Germany were the first ones near us to have their numbers escalate very quickly. This, in my opinion, shows how Europe was unprepared as a whole. I don’t think they realized the amount of collateral damage they were about to have. Not to mention Italy, who underestimated and unfortunately is now suffering. Nevertheless, I do believe Belgium reacted correctly. The Parliament – with the executive decision of the President David Sassoli – decided to temporarily close a day before Belgium was placed as Level 3. They cancelled events, committee meetings, and the untouchable Strasbourg week (which is a big deal since that has only happened once in history).

Waking up that Thursday, bombarded with groupme messages and emails saying that our program was officially cancelled wasn’t how I expected to start my day. Then when I realized that yesterday became my last day and that I left my internship without saying a proper goodbye to my supervisors and MEP was heart breaking. I was only able to reconnect with them once I was settled back in Brazil. It is impressive how in that short period of time the number of confirmed cases in Europe escalated and self-quarantining became top priority. In my previous blog post, I had explained how this semester I intensively researched on poverty migration as a consequence of the freedom of movement in the EU. However, with the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19, most of our information and data became outdated. So, I was asked to monitor the European and American media, and see what has been happening to the homeless population in as many countries as possible, and what has the government been doing to help them.

It has only been a couple days that I have been following the news, but I have found countless of interesting articles. According to Euro News, France currently has 157,000 people in homeless shelters, and their Ministry of Housing is in the process of opening two isolation centers in Paris, each with 150 beds for those that test positive but don’t need to be hospitalized. Several regions have also adopted this idea, and 80 sites have been chosen with a total of 2,875 places. According to the New York Times article on Rome’s homeless population, charity volunteers have been delivering boxed dinners 4x a week and have been averaging 2,500 per week. While on the other nights, St. Egidio offers hot meals in their soup kitchen. Even though the UK isn’t officially part of the EU anymore, I thought it would still be relevant to see what has been happening there. According to an article from CNN, their homeless population has reached to 320,000 people. Unfortunately, one of their homeless facilities was closed since one person died from COVID-19, meaning that the rest are currently sleeping in the streets and could have easily been infected by the virus already.

Reading these news articles have made me a lot more conscious of this part of the population that we tend to forget. I have no doubt that they are suffering the most from all of this. I can’t imagine the anxiety they feel by sleeping in overcrowded shelters, panicking when they hear a cough or a sneeze, and wondering if they will be the next to be infected. However, I do believe that Europe is currently doing the best they can to protect them by offering meals and attempting to expand the numbers of shelters to minimize the amount of people sleeping under the same rough. With that being said, I am glad I can still contribute in this project my supervisors have been working so hard on. I’ve enjoyed using my language skills, as they instructed me to, and being updated on what is happening around the world.

“Homeless people hold signs appealing for help as they pose for a photograph in London on March 19” (From CNN news article stated above).