Third week…
Good day!
This is our third week working from home.
Since Saturday March 28, the government has instituted curfew for Curacao. This means that you are not allowed to go outside between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM.
Meanwhile, the number of corona cases on Curacao has increased from 6 to 11 in total. 2 have been cured, 2 are in hospital and 1 passed away. Of these, at least 1 was a local infection. The disadvantage of a local contamination is that it is much more difficult to find out where it comes from and is more difficult to control.
The curfew has been there for 1 day only because Sunday, March 29 at 6:00 pm, the government announced that from Monday, March 30, 6:00 AM the curfew will be a day clock. In other words Curacao is imposed to a total lockdown. Total lockdown means you can only go outside for essential matters. Walking in nature or boating for fun is no longer allowed, you can no longer go to work, cleaning swimming pools for other people, all shops must close except the shops that provide food, etc.
In short: everyone should stay at home and do your shopping as quickly as possible and alone, do not drive around unnecessarily. This initially applies for 2 weeks.
Not easy to understand for everybody, more people think their business is also essential. In addition, it is not possible for many people to leave immediately from Monday. This gave a lot of traffic on the road on Monday, and long lines at the supermarkets, because you have to keep 2 meters away and therefore only a limited number of people can enter the supermarkets at the same time.
Serena also saw her schedule messed up. We planned to distribute new work and supplies Thursday April 2nd. Everyone had half a week of work at home and they would be able to pick up new things from the factory. This cannot continue to the great regret of Serena, but also of all employees. It is not essential for the production of Serena’s Art Factory to continue. It is difficult for some to understand, but everyone must now consider the health of all the people of Curacao.
Curacao is an island with 160,000 inhabitants and a hospital with only 12 IC beds. “Flatten the curf” has been the message here from the beginning. This means something like keep the number of infections low, otherwise the hospital cannot handle the demand.
In the meantime, I am working on new developments with Serena and the marketing assistant. Setting up a webshop in collaboration with Cpost and other companies that sell local souvenirs. This process has already been running but must now be accelerated. We do our best to also encourage all other partners to put some extra momentum behind this.
We are also busy setting up our own online selling point through our website and Facebook page. Taking pictures of the products and creating a new page on the website.
We can now prepare this so, if we can get back on the street, we can actually send it. So stay tuned and soon you can choose and order your Chichi online from your own home.
The whole situation remains exciting and uncertain. I wonder what next week will bring us.
Regards,
Hermien Visscher
Office manager Serena’s Art Factory
