Suddenly the world comes to a standstill – Corona Part I Phenomenons in Germany

Remark at the beginning: The original post is in German under “Almuts Anekdoten” and I did my best to make it understandable to non-Germans here 😊.

The world is forced to take a pause and the missing reasons for mobility change our daily life.

„When do we experience a historical incident like the fall of the Berlin Wall, which the generation after us has to learn in school?“ asked one of my sons a year ago. Today I would answer:“We are right in the middle of it.“ 

Bismarckstreet, Darmstadt, Germany

After China and Europe the corona crisis gains a stranglehold of the complete world and challenges society across borders.

Today, Thursday, March 17, 2020: While cycling through our inner city of Darmstadt with empty cafés (which are meanwhile closed), I got the idea to write down my impressions in this historical time period. In school I was always more thrilled by stories of witnesses than by summarys of the time decades afterwards.

It feels contradictory: the good weather, the kids at home (due to school closure), die nearly empty streets, a feeling like during summer holidays. But the real reason for these conditions makes you shiver. Behind some buildings people battle with this virus.

A group of colleagues who returned from Austria from skiing on the last minute before the ban of going out, told me that the ski runs and the ski huts were empty. Normally this would be totally fine but this time it felt spooky as there were already rumours that the Austrian government will close more tourists locations as they already did in the Tirol region.  The events overturn each day, the death rate is increasing in Italy day by day and nobody believes any longer that the virus will stop in front of a human border line. In the worst case they would be banned in their holiday appartment, the whole group for at least two weeks. What a horrorful scenario. So they interrupted their holiday and came back.

It feels like in a blockbuster thriller film. First nobody takes the danger of the virus seriously as it happens on the other side of the world in China. This is far away. Aha, a new virus, it is following the swine fever influenza and bird´s pest outbreak.  This period we passed without any serious restrictions as we don´t work in the agricultural sector. Many of us thought:“If the virus was dangerous, they would have stopped all flights to China.“ This was the meaning in January here in Germany. Meanwhile Lufthansa has stopped 95% of their flights to allover the world..…

North Station, Darmstadt, March 18, 2020, 6:30 p.m. the trains still run

When we saw in the news that China was sealing hermetically cities with millions of inhabitants and that a Chinese business woman infected the first German man during a training here in Germany nobody thought that this impact will reach us as bad as in China. Some of the newsreaders changed from the „Wishing you a nice evening“ to „Stay healthy“. In Germany we had the long carneval period in February in front of us. Many events of carnival sessions with hundreds of people and processions with sometimes thousands of people as audience and participants. Following my intuition I decided to be on the „safe“ side and to film my yearly carneval film for my youtube channel „sommeradler“ at the first possible weekend in the Black Forest. At that time being I supposed that the virus wouldn´t have infiltrated the public transport yet. During the carnival procession I realised first hygienic improvements: at all participants´costumes there was hanging their proper individual cups. Nobody is sharing one bottle with each other.

Italy first actual deaths due to Covid-19 comes in the focus of our news. I am surprised that the really huge carneval processions in the end of February aren´t stopped here in Germany seeing one European country suffering under this virus. Additionally the first village nearby Cologne experiences a shut-down as many of the inhabitants suddenly had the Corona symptoms and were positively tested. 356 people had to stay in quarantine for two weeks. Probably they were infected during a carnival session. This was assumed as a Corona-positive couple was identified as the infecter. Where did this couple get the virus? Nobody knows.

March 17, 2020
Rheinstrasse, one of the main streets in Darmstadt with 158.000 inhabitants

This occurence had quite a negative taste but the government still emphasized that they don´t want to spread panic. In my opinion the word quarantine sounds like solitary confinement.

Young people (aged after 1980) in our department ask, if we ever experienced such an uncertainty in the past – a danger which is invisible and not intangible. Yes, we experienced such a period during the beginning of AIDS and the reactor disaster of Tschernobyl in the 80s. I remember many different recommendations and instructions added with an enormous uncertainty.  May I eat this or that without damage? Who can be trusted? The instruction NOT to eat fresh vegetable from the garden and NOT to sit on the lawn or to stay longer outdoors and the news that the radioactive material will remain for decades made me feel very uneasy.

However, there was a huge difference. Without mobile and internet we only got information via newspaper, television or word of mouth recommendation. Today news go around the globe to a much higher rate via internet – on the one hand it is of advantage to alert, on the other hand it is vulnerable for false information and conspiracy theories.
  

Back to March 17, 2020, the last day I passed our city until now. It is comfortable warm with 16 degrees. However I see only very few people outside, although the official ban of going out didn´t exist at that time being. You see people only in front of ice cream parlours and bus stops.  Since beginning of week (yesterday March 16, 2020) all schools and kindergardens were closed. There are possiblities for childcare only for parents which work in indispensable jobs in health, police, firebrigade and energy supplier. They need a declaration from their employer that they need go to work. Some borders to our neighbour countries were completely closed and only let through trucks with delivery of goods and employed persons. On March 16, 2020 the German government announced that it will be necessary to close all shops which are not essential for life and to limit the opening hours of restaurants.

empty café in the park Herrengarten in the afternoon, Darmstadt

Facing the current ban of going out from Austria everybody is waiting in suspense if only the closure of these shops will be sufficient. We are not surprised if the ban would come. The covid-19-mortality in Italy in Bergamo is increasing so high that they can´t bury the deads any longer. Coffins have been collected in the church until finally several trucks of the Italian army picked them up and bring them out of Bergamo. Awful pictures we will never forget. Many Italians live here in Darmstadt since years and suffer with their families in the banned cities in the North of Italy. Yesterday we saw Trump saying: „We are in war.“ When hearing that I remember people discussing whether the German army Bundeswehr would help in case of emergency as the Bundeswehr already did this during flood disasters by helping people to build barriers with sandbags. Would they be able to replace truck drivers and care for necessary deliveries in case the normal truck drivers fall ill? Could they assist our nursing staff if many of them get ill like in Italy?

Closed school in Darmstadt

Nearby I heard of first people who have symptoms and wait for a test. This takes one to two days. In the office we were informed that a task force group was formed. They inform us regularly with mails about the status on a different website and recommendments how to behave. One morning every door of our toilets were covered by a huge poster with operating instruction how to wash your hands so that no corona virus can stick. Slowley like in a film people become sensitive. One of our colleagues remembers a carton with desinfection bottles in a room in the basement remaining from a former removal. Although everybody emphasizes that soap treatment is sufficient to cope with the virus for some people the desinfection possibility is a calming feeling. So our boss decided to install one bottle of desinfection on a table directly behind the entrance. As we are working in a pharmaceutical development department with laboratories everybody knows that the bottle has to be shut after use, visitors don´t know it. Therefore I designed the following sketch for the table.

Knowing that desinfection bottles are already sold out in many shops in Germany we looked for it that never a full bottle stands there over night. Even in a very controlled huge company with 10.000 employes on our site such things disappear. We hided the remaining bottles in one of our cupboards.

When the business trips were cancelled one after the other since the beginning of February. The number of "risk countries" increased more and more, more and more returnees of that risk countries had to work in the home office under quarantine for two weeks. The thought crept into all of us: will there be a shutdown here in the company at some point? How can we maintain our business capability? Rumours are going around: there is a suspicious case that is being tested...in the other building. The next day it says: negative, not infected.

Everyone seems to be waiting: when will he arrive, the first positively tested employee in my own circle of acquaintances/colleagues? Can we push the cancelled business events into June or is it still uncertain whether the event ban will be lifted? Our head of department decides the week before last that we should alterate in the office, where possible, only half of the team is present, the rest is working at home, so that in the worst case of an infection, one half can still keep things running.

 Liebig Street in the afternoon March 17,2020, Darmstadt

I will never forget the face of my top boss when he suddenly comes into the office with his mobile phone yesterday - I was already alone in the office and the others working at home: "Is it really that bad already? Have you noticed anything in the direction of shutdown, what the federal government has just decided?" Result: together with the school closure, all homeoffice-capable employees now really stay at home, including me. "For the time being...", a colleague waved to me (we have long since given up shaking hands): "We'll see when we meet again.“ - Feels somehow unreal: we in this highly industrialized society are taking measures that otherwise only occur in movies in disaster or war scenarios. Border closures with controls, suddenly the border trees are not out of date.

Although the partial shutdown will not take effect until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, Darmstadt is already emptier today than ever before at this time. I can hardly see older people at all while I cycle the 4km into the city to the dentist. Many people have taken the recommendation to stay at home seriously. The song "Allein, allein" (Alone, alone) from Polarkreis 18 from 2009 comes to my mind.

One of the mainstreets in Darmstadt, normally full of traffic on March 17,2020

I notice that the air is excellent due to the lack of normal traffic on the main roads. Birds are chirping everywhere and that in the big city. There is a big warning sign at the dentist's office that one should not enter the practice with flu-like symptoms. There is nobody sitting in the waiting room, everything is so unusually quiet as if one is in a wellness hotel. No drilling to be heard. The patient in front of me leaves the practice. In the background, I hear the news on the radio about the Hessian government's recommendation to reduce social contacts. I read in the newspaper this morning that most of the older people who have experienced the expulsion and world war II are not afraid of the virus. The sight of empty shelves in the shops do not shock them, they still know this from the old days after the war or from the GDR. You just buy what's available. By the way, very interesting, the panic buys „Hamsterkäufe“ (engl. hamster buys) affected toilet paper, noodles, yeast and cans here in Germany. I am curious what other countries will buy most in a panic.

I wonder what the journalists in the sports section will write about if all sports events have now been banned. The cultural section with missing publications. Maybe there will be new sources for virtual culture, which will experience a new heyday. Aha, Amazon is hiring thousands of new employees, because people can't get out, but mail order will still be possible. The asparagus farmers in our area are desperately looking for seasonal workers, because only a part of them is covered by the East European workers and new people would have to be trained in the technology in a time-consuming way. Apart from that it is a heavy physical work.

closed playgrounds in Darmstadt

I learn that as of today the health insurance companies no longer allow personal contact, the applications for dental crowns can only be inserted or sent by mail. We learn patience. I am already very happy that the dentist is not sick himself and can practice.

The dynamic of the many messages is enormous, all people here in Germany have a unifying theme, some are sceptical, others optimistic because they are so young that they will probably not be affected or with few symptoms, another part can be sprinkled with all the news. Personally, I wonder how one can go to sleep after having spent the whole day dealing with all kinds of horror scenarios. It has to be processed somewhere. I limit myself to one time a day, the rest I get from my family and friends on the phone. Maybe we'll get back to the "not the topic again" feeling when the journalists report about nothing else for months, similar to the Greek crisis or England´s brexite.

Since I live with a big family with house and garden, I am still very well, even if the complete curfew would come. I am thinking more of the people who live in apartments without a balcony and who would not be able to get out in case of quarantine. And all those people who live alone and do not have the possibility of virtual exchange. We may learn to bear ourselves, we will come up against limits in some new habits and situations. On the other hand, people in emergency situations are starting to get very creative ideas: you can enter "Italians sing quarantine" on YouTube and see some of the millions of Italians who are still under curfew singing together from their windows. Emergency and crises obviously also cause helpfulness, here in our neighborhood there are already some people who agree to walk the dog in case someone is in quarantine and is not allowed to go outside.

Bismarckstreet, Darmstadt

And now here they come, the opportunities of this crisis: I am sure that the supply chains will be reconsidered, whether the products will be sent back and forth around the globe only because of the personnel costs. Whether consumers are willing to pay more for a product that is regionally produced in Europe.

As an accustomed "all-inclusive" society, we are also allowed to experience what it is like to live with restrictions. Many adventurers tell about their travels that getting clean water from the tap alone is pure luxury. Only in such a situation we do become aware of what we really need. Similar to a hike or camping: there we only take the most necessary things with us. And we are nevertheless satisfied because we realize: man does not really need that much.

The social restriction, the lack of physical contact with others, yes, it is difficult. I caught myself, how often I would reach out my hand at the beginning, when I saw someone. A pity, actually. It's lucky that the digital world makes video conferencing possible, it relieves the feeling of being "isolated".

Interestingly, I experienced a special effect of reduction the other day. The coming to rest. Normally I film two to three light effect shows every two years at the Luminale in Frankfurt with over 200 events, edit them for the YouTube channel. Besides my normal work, editing the film as soon as possible takes a lot of time and energy, quite a lot of pressure. A mixture of curiosity, pleasure in visuals and sharing usually motivates me to do this.

This year it was different. After the indoor events had already been cancelled due to Corona, I chose the outdoor event, which I knew would be less crowded, I wouldn't take the S-Bahn, but, unusually for me, take the car and walk the rest of the way into town. I received the cancellation for the Luminale from people who have a news ticker for the latest news on their mobile phones and who received this message of cancellation only 6 hours before the big events started. At the beginning I thought such a function was sensationalistic to want to be up to date all the time. In this case it saved me from driving into Frankfurt unnecessarily. What a pity, I thought on the one hand, for the organizers and the much time that had already been invested over a year, and then this very, very short-term cancellation.....And what costs must be involved.

Until suddenly the disappointment gave way to another feeling: "Now you have more time and you don't have to rush." Also the other events and social meetings of the last days, which were cancelled, create more space to think about "what did I actually always want to do here in the house? What things am I putting off because of all the work outside? Procrastinating? Cleaning out the cellar... when the older children move out or move house, there is always one or the other thing left, should that be kept for the younger ones or can that be removed. The many "can I possibly still use" small parts that a creative person like me likes to throw into boxes. And with the mucking out new ideas will arise again, which I can share e.g. on my instagram account imaginationriver.

Sketch of February 20, 2020: restaurant Alter Schwede in Wismar, Baltic Sea, Germany
not yet completely empty as no restrictions yet

How are we going to cope with this, a state of emergency of fear of curfew and supply chain disruption that could threaten with all the hoarding purchases of toilet paper and pasta here in Germany - we personally did not hoard yet - the external restrictions that are increasing? Are we going to get on each other's nerves in the family when we all work in the home office? We are used to having variety. Will we then feel trapped, restricted? Or will the famous inner emptiness come over us? I remember another song from my school days: "Thoughts are free, who can guess them, they fly by like night shadows, no one can know them, no hunter can shoot them ...". In spite of all external limitations, man is free inside. He now has the opportunity, through the removal of the corset of obligations from his hamster wheel, to see what meaning and values he is pursuing, to get to know interesting aspects of his other emotional spectrum. He may learn to bear himself. He has the opportunity to read a book again or to devote himself to a topic for which he has never taken the time until now.

IDEA ALSO FOR CHILDREN: cut out images of old magazines and
advertising leaflet and stick it to a collage

....something like that might be the result :-)....

It is my personal assumption that especially for the perfectionists the next time will be very difficult, because the appreciation in work and society will disappear and now the focus will be on oneself or on the family. Everybody may ask himself, what really makes sense for me, what do I want to change in the future. We have the chance to have a close look at what we let ourselves be influenced by, what am I actually looking at all day long or am I being driven from one little film in YouTube to the next and distracted from my actual goals. What would be my perfect month, what would I like to do most every day, at work, in my family, in my free time. The keyword for this: self-reflection.

Sheep doesn´t care about this situation...found on the noise protection barrier,
Darmstadt-Arheilgen, March 17, 2020

If you prefer to be active, you are also welcome to clean out at home. There is certainly a corner, drawer or room that has served as a "temporary storage" for everyone. You can also make phone calls, i.e. it's not solitary confinement like in prison. I have already had several very intensive and deep telephone conversations, which were only possible because of the "more" time at home. I have been making many decisions for a long time with the filter: "Nobody will die if I don't do it now or if I cancel it.“ Setting limits is easier.

For us personally, last Sunday was an aha-experience: it's been a long time since we have seen so many people walking on the streets, fields and woods. The air was better than ever, the silence a relief, as we are normally exposed to the departing airplanes with the connected aircraft noise from Frankfurt airport. Darmstadt has one of the highest pollutant emissions in Germany with partially closed roads for older diesel engines. In days like these, this level will improve so much that we could soon become a spa town. It is said that the smog in Wuhan is already gone after the first weeks of closure and the city is visible from space for the first time. There is no better example for more measures to change people's mobility. Nature is flourishing, people are coming to rest as long as they do not belong to the disease-related people who are in continuous use or to the people who are trying to avert the consequential damage to the economy.

Why we do all this...

We cannot thank people enough for their commitment. The queasy feeling of when and if the fate of China and Italy will also fall upon us. To know that the intensive care beds might not be enough and that an unworthy death awaits the people who suffer from it without the company of relatives in the last minutes as in Italy, where in the local newspaper L'Eco di Bergamo (as of March 18th) the obituaries fill eleven pages daily instead of the usual one or two pages.

With all the horror and fate with thousands of dead, Corona hopefully offers opportunities from which we can learn for the future. We may have made one or the wrong decisions, but we will gain important experience for the future, which simply cannot be played through in theory. In which the decision makers have so far seen no need for more investment. The process of obtaining approvals can perhaps be accelerated, and the climate issue will gain even more momentum. The economy can develop new levers to be able to handle such an event differently in the future. Let us remember the stock market crash of 2007, when a world almost collapsed. When the stock market was reporting massive losses in the last two weeks, people were more inclined to say: "Okay, we know that, we have losses now, we will simply get through them. Just don't panic and sell anything. It'll recover eventually." The mind says, "It's only money for now. Health comes first, we need patience." In a few years time, terms like "back in the Corona period, during the corona holidays" will enter the vocabulary, which we can still tell our grandchildren about. No disaster exercise, no matter how good, is as instructive as a real experienced event, even if it is a pure tragedy how many people have to die for these experiences. Even if, in one case or another, young people find it difficult to understand why the action and the appeal to reason are necessary, they will later understand what it means to serve the social community, to pursue a common goal.

Many people go for a walk with social distance
 and observe the sunsets in this week, Darmstadt, March 17,2020

And at the very end it just occurred to me that two weeks ago two people in my larger circle of acquaintances died, both with diseases of dementia or Parkinson's, both over 80. Both of them were not tested for Corvid-19...the dark figure will certainly be even higher. One of the affected sons wonders if the funeral can take place as planned without other seniors becoming seriously ill, it is the responsibility of the individual to attend the funeral, as well as the decision not to hug the mourner because reason dictates it.....a challenge of rethinking for the next weeks and months for all of us is pending....

As they say in the great blockbusters, "and nothing is ever the same again." At some point the day of the Corona eruption will be a date in future history books.