Pandemic years 2020/21 - part 2: From Shock to Habit

Spring to early summer 2020)

(DE) It's the afternoon of 16th June 2021. Fifteen months after the Bavarian prime minister declared a state of emergency because of the pandemic. I am sitting for the first time again, on the terrace of a café relaxing in the sun. The infection figures are low, as my morning check of the 7-day incidence figures in Bavaria and my district showed. I am also vaccinated. I want to celebrate that in style with a big piece of cake.

The waiter wears a mask. I am only allowed to take my mask off when sitting at the table. I have to fill out a registration form. Another guest, also wearing a mask, shyly asks me if he can join me at my table at a distance of 1.50 m, which I allow him to do, but the café owner refuses. All that does not dampen my euphoria. At last, everyday life again! Really? Is that normal now?! Before 16th March 2020, it would all have been absurd. Simply unthinkable.

At the beginning!

At the beginning of 2020, the media were full of reports of this new lung disease in China, which had apparently spread from animals to humans at an animal market in Wuhan.

Well, these things do happen! But, unfortunately, it's not the first time it's occurred! And it won't be the last! The SARS virus, a member of the coronavirus family, has been known since 2003. It's annoying and pandemic-prone, but it's a threat that humanity will have to live with.

When, at the end of January 2020, the first individual infections occurred in a company in Bavaria due to a Chinese employee, it was news but not yet a red alert.

Innocent as a toddler, I groped my way through my seemingly safe world. Yes, yes, there is a virus in China, Sars or something like that. We've had it before. I vaguely remember.

I attended a big birthday party suspecting no harm at the beginning of February, visited my old mother in a nursing home and on 8th March, during a two-day stay at my girlfriend's, discussed whether a holiday in Greece would be possible in June or July. But, of course, at that time, I travelled undeterred and for hours unprotected by public transport, without a mask, without disinfectant. When an older man in the greengrocer's shop refused to touch the door handle because he had heard that one could get infected with this virus from China, I mockingly grabbed the handle and demonstratively held the door open for him. You can really overdo it! So I thought.

Many others felt the same way. People went on winter holidays at the beginning of February, either to exotic countries or to the Bavarian Alps or Austria for skiing. The winter sports resort of Ischgl in Austria later became synonymous with a super-spreading event like no other. But hardly anyone believed at the time that they were in danger or that our everyday life could change fundamentally.

Then came that 16th March mentioned above: The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder announced the state of emergency and the restrictions. My world changed, as did my attitude. At first, my fear was vague and diffuse. Gradually, it took control of my actions, and I developed a tremendous need for information. The more knowledge I gained, the greater the fear became and the greater my appetite for more information. "I don't want to suffocate!" it pounded in my head. "How can I stop this?" Strangely enough, the prospect that my heart, weakened by a heart attack, would probably fail first and I possibly would be spared suffocation provided some comfort for me. I relaxed and observed curiously what was happening around me.

Shut down, stay in, stay alone!

"Shutdown", "Lockdown"! New Anglicisms, new interference in personal freedom, a new situation that most people in Germany had never experienced before. "Stay at home!", "Don't meet anyone!", "Keep two metres away!" And "Wash your hands for three minutes if you had to have contact!"

The usefulness of masks is debated and there are hardly any to buy anyway.

My self-made mask monstrosity made from a tea towel.

These virologists' recommendations were cast into law and now restricted people's fundamental rights. For me, however, as for many others, the need for safety was more substantial than the need for freedom, and even my usual mistrust took a back seat to fear and uncertainty for the time being. Actually, a dangerous development because that's how manipulation works. I was aware of this and wanted to be vigilant. Finally, however, I concluded that the measures were necessary and that there was no political calculation behind them.

Obeying the government but mainly listening to reason

In my immediate environment, the mood and behaviour changed abruptly. No one had any idea what would happen next. My ex-husband, and best friend, who had just driven from Hamburg to Naila in Bavaria (ca. 550 km, a 6 hours drive) on 15th March to decorate my second home in our son's house, hurried back home to his wife only two days later. Again, no one had any idea how much our freedom of movement would be restricted. We were afraid there could be a curfew, and he might not be able to leave Bavaria. Moreover, the motorways could be blocked entirely, for example, if the border to Poland were closed. Then there would be no possibility of getting through. There was a tremendous sense of uncertainty since we had never experienced such restrictions on our freedom of movement before.

Five days later, on Friday, 20th March, my son and his wife hastily left my Munich flat, where they lived during the working week. They, too, feared that they might not be allowed to leave Munich, and the home office in their house in Upper Franconia was a most welcome option. So now we lived door to door in the two flats of his house in Naila. My son and daughter-in-law did the shopping for me but kept their distance for the next two weeks. After all, no one knew if they had been infected while still walking around unsuspectingly and unprotected in Munich.

The rest of the Germans now seemed inclined to panic buy. Oddly enough, people were seen with loads of toilet paper in their shopping trolleys, which led to all kinds of jokes on social media. So I gave my son, who had his birthday in those first days of the pandemic, a roll of toilet paper, nicely wrapped as a present. He was pleased. There was nowhere to buy a gift anyway, as the relevant shops were closed. My daughter-in-law left a slice of homemade birthday cake in front of my door. So much for celebrations during that time.

Although I was now living in the same house with my family, I met no one. I was alone. For hours every day, I read the news, reviews and science reports and tried to make sense of the regulations. I feared that I would have to leave my son's house because this was only my secondary residence. In fact, if the two homes had been in different federal states, such as Schleswig-Holstein or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, I would have been forced to return to my primary residence in Munich even so there would have been no one there to support me in case of quarantine or illness. Thank God there were no such restrictions on residences within Bavaria.

Each federal state made its own laws and regulations. As a result, the pandemic measures became confusing in our federal republic and remained so for a long time.

Yet, in the beginning, most people accepted the measures and adhered to the laws and bans. Out of fear? Out of solidarity? Out of insecurity? Hard to say.

What is certain is that this collective "shutdown" also offered something in itself. No one missed anything! It was calming, even relaxing for me.

Little contact - more communication

The need for communication, of course, increased exponentially with the contact restrictions and increased numbers of infections. So I gathered information and viewpoints from the online editions of print media and broadcasters' news, documentaries and expert roundtables. But with whom should I share my findings, and by what means?

Digitally - WhatsApp and Facebook - was not enough. Phone calls were much better. Skyping was almost like face-to-face meetings, only without the risk of infection. Now many more people have the time for long conversations. With one of my friends, I even arranged a daily morning chat to exchange thoughts and information.

We noticed that we were coping quite well with this situation. Suddenly, we were all in the same boat, adhering to simple rules that promised us safety and protection. We looked forward with curiosity to the things that were to come. As pensioners, we belonged to the risk group in terms of age and previous illnesses, but on the other hand, we had already left the daily business and had long since become accustomed to fewer contacts. So we all marvelled at the new social developments in Germany.

Denunciation and aggression

My friend angrily told me of a heated argument with a neighbouring family. They could watch the public playground from their garden and see parents playing there with their children, which was forbidden. The neighbour seriously considered calling the police, even though the lawbreakers were only one family who probably did not have a garden of their own and needed to keep the children busy.

The police announced in the press that people regularly denounced their neighbours for allegedly violating one of the rules of the Infection Protection Act.

I was also stunned to read about a woman sitting on a park bench in the English Garden, reading alone. She was chased away by the police. Why? At that time, being in public places was only allowed for urgent reasons. Going for a walk is necessary; sitting on a bench and reading is not, but taking a short rest during a walk is. Yet, the latter had to be explicitly permitted by the Bavarian Minister of the Interior.

Considering that the risk of infection of a single person sitting alone in public in the fresh air is zero, one must wonder about the reasoning behind such bans and about the people who want such prohibitions to be obeyed.

It just didn't make sense to me that bans and prohibitions could be used as a basis for denunciation without any meaningful consideration, without any standards of their own. Why did people believe more in the letters of a quickly cobbled-together law than in their clear common sense? If I am alone, I cannot infect myself or anyone else. So there is no need for action for now. But obviously, at that time, panic and a sense of obedience to authority dominated rather than personal responsibility and independent thinking.

On the German Baltic coast, i.e. in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, particular laws applied. Second-home owners from Hamburg and Berlin were at times not allowed to travel to their homes to avoid people fleeing the cramped cities and overburdening the local health system. Several locals paid meticulous attention to whether a stranger was shopping in the grocery shop or a familiar local face standing in front of the counter. So it could happen that a person was not served and could not buy anything to eat. Some angry residents even took out their anger and fear on the cars with non-local license plates.

I was scared reading these press reports. I feared that anticipatory obedience, scare-biting and finally, the loss of compassion in the crisis would indeed build up.

I even began to mentally check my neighbourhood to see if they had the potential for denunciation or not.

Easing, but not the end

The first wave peaked in early April 2020 and then slowly subsided. From mid-April, society gradually reopened, and on 17th June 2020, the state of emergency was lifted.

Yet, it had to be clear to everyone that the pandemic was not over yet. The virus would be on the move with all the travellers around the globe this summer, and of course, it would return. Still, my country was not prepared again for this foreseeable catastrophe. (TA)