Life in Brno during state emergency due to COVID19

I am now living in Brno, Czech Republic, with my wife. We are from India. We are here at Brno city since 15th August 2019. I am working as a Postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University. Brno is a great city to live. Here, you will find many international students from all over the world. Although the cost of living at Brno is not so high, the monthly rent of a private apartment for a family is slightly high. The monthly rent of a private apartment (around 50 square meters) at Brno city is approximately CZK 18k to 20k including all utilities. There are many grocery supermarkets available in the city such as Albert, Tesco, Bila, Lidl, etc. We stay near to the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University. There is an Albert supermarket near my faculty.

Everything was going very smoothly before the spread of Coronavirus (COVID19). Masaryk University has stopped contact teaching since the second week of March, and it will be continued until 15th May 2020. All the employees have been asked to work from home since the second week of March. During the third week, I went to my office in the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University only once to attend a meeting. In the streets, we can find only a few people nowadays. The Czech government has taken adequate measures so that all the emergency services remain open during this entire period of state emergency. We went to the nearest grocery supermarket, known as Albert, last Friday. Fortunately, almost everything is available there. We found all the necessary groceries. For our safety and to prevent the virus from spreading among the community, we are now locked in our room. We are not going outside without any need. When I am writing this, India goes into 21 days lockdown. Being one of the most populous countries, India must tackle the situation of Coronavirus more tactfully.

The Czech government has made it mandatory for all to wear a mask and cover hands when in public places. If you don’t have any masks, then you can also cover your face with a scarf. A particular time slot in the morning is allocated for all the pensioners (age above 65 years) in all the supermarkets. During this time slot, people whose age is below 65 years are not allowed to enter the supermarkets. This is indeed a good step taken by the Czech government so that older people can not get infected with the Coronavirus. As of 24th March 2020, over 19k people have been tested for COVID19. Out of them, more than 13k has found to be infected, while two people have died, and eight are healed.