First, nobody around here gave a damn about some new COVID strain in China mentioned in the paper. Then, they said the virus would come to get us too. It did. The government got slammed for protecting us. Deniers spread their BS. It has been 1,000 days. Now, what?
Berlin, October 24th, 2022 (The Berlin Spectator) — During a Corona lockdown, ravioli in cans are delicious the first day you eat them. On the second day, they are still pretty good. A day later, they’re o.k.. Not more and not less than that. On the fourth day, they don’t taste well anymore. On the fifth day, we will not be able to choke down one single raviolo anymore. In this situation, switching to frozen pizza is recommended.
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Better People
I liked my first face mask. It was made of cloth, in green with white dots, and kept my beard warm, until Angela Merkel said masks were “virus catapults”. Later, when she changed her opinion, I liked it again. It got washed and ironed all the time. No shirt, not even my favorite one, was ever treated this well. And Germany’s overworked doctors and nurses never got this much applause from balconies before. Awesome.
Wait. Forget it. I retract everything I said. The ravioli sucked. So did the pizza, the masks and the applause. Maybe the first months of this mess made us better people. Many of us wanted to make it through the crisis together. But, the longer it took, the less of this solidarity was felt. Also, it did not take long until Germany’s worst haters, including Nazis, took advantage of the situation Corona created.
Daily Occurrence
The virus was brought in on January 16th, 2020. A Chinese lady traveled to the Bavarian town of Stockdorf, to take part in a workshop with her colleagues at Webasto, a company that manufactures chargers for electric vehicles. Just before her trip, she had met her parents from Wuhan, the city the Coronavirus originated from. A few days later, on January 27th, 2020, the first German COVID-19 case was confirmed. It was not her fault. Had this lady from Shanghai not been infected, it would have found other ways. Soon enough, it did.
From this moment onwards, whatever hit the fan did not smell too good. Germany flew out its citizens from China. In at least one case, two years before the war, Moscow denied the Germans the right to land for a stopover. Masks were imported from China since we did not have any. Breaking news were a daily occurrence. Suddenly, Angela Merkel was in quarantine and people started dying. In the past 999 days of Corona, 152 infected patients in Germany lost their lives every day, on average. Sadly, the official number of COVID-19 victims who died in the Federal Republic until this morning is 152,482.
Cheese Counter
On the 1,000th day, tomorrow, we will still be in trouble. Because we are in an even bigger mess by now, due to Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the energy crisis it triggered, we are beginning to forget about Corona. We should not. Let’s be careful and show solidarity. The best way to do so is to wear masks, even voluntarily, whenever there are people around us. Protecting the person we meet at the cheese counter, or the crowd we are part of at the Simply Red concert, is easy. A thousand days into this damned mess, this should not have to be explained anymore.
Looking for the daily Corona update for Germany? Find it here.
ALL CORONA CHRONOLOGIES:
Corona Chronology for Germany, 2022
Corona Chronology for Germany, 2021
Corona Chronology for Germany, 2020