City officials were very active during the first lockdown. Less solicited for the second, they always receive new questions each government speech.
When the people of Poitou, like many French people, watch the government’s speeches on the evolution of the health crisis, some prepare to answer their questions the next day. “There is a normality which settled during the second confinement, but we receive calls the day after the new announcements”, confirms Aurélie Androuin. HR manager, she had been mobilized under the former municipal team with her colleagues to answer questions from agents of the city and Grand Poitiers. On March 16, the internal cell was opened to requests from residents.
About a hundred calls per day on average during the first confinement
At the time of the second gradual deconfinement and the December curfew, the Info-Virus unit shows a strong disparity between the two periods. At the first confinement, she received around 100 calls per day on average. During the latter, the peaks following the speeches amounted to about fifty solicitations, at best. Five to six people share the work of answering them, but since December 7, they have left their large collective room at the town hall to join their offices located on rue du Puygareau. “But we are still on the same floor, we still have information sharing”, reassures Aurélie Androuin. “Our leitmotif is that no one leaves without an answer. “
So what are the Poitevins’ questions? “The majority of questions during the second confinement relate to the reasons to be indicated on the exceptional travel certificates. This is really the main question we have had. “ The first confinement, before the habit outweighed the abnormality of the situation, was richer: where to wear the mask – and above all, where not to wear it -, how to move, how to take care of the gardens vegetable gardens, when to go to the recycling center, what help for which professionals … And also, testimonies of isolation and loneliness. “We had a lot of concerns to manage during the first confinement”, remembers the one who has provided answers since the beginning of the crisis. “The users didn’t even ask us any questions: it was reassuring for them to be able to talk, to have someone on the phone. “
Two profiles in particular came back among the callers. Isolated people, especially in neighborhoods, looking for a link and needing to talk, and the elderly, without internet, for whom the town hall is the entry point for obtaining information. “See even, for some, we were also the Yellow Pages”, jokes Aurélie Androuin. But also volunteers wishing to help people isolated or in difficulty, that the town hall puts in contact with the associative network. A surge of generosity which faded with the resumption of work.
The Info-Virus unit still responds to calls and continues its watch work, but the drop in activity has allowed the agents to resume their former functions in parallel. No questions about Christmas dinner or New Years Eve have yet been asked, for example. It will only take a special case or a government speech for the phone to ring again. But as Aurélie Androuin reminds us, the cell has “Always had the answers”.
> Info Virus. Unique information number in Poitiers: 05.49.52.35.11. This information line is open Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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