Corona year 2021: Experience reports – District of Munich

Nicola Rieger, teacher at an international private school, from Oberschleißheim: 2021 was not an easy year. After long years abroad, it is difficult to rebuild a normal social life with the restrictions. I suffer a lot from that. Corona caught me in March when teachers weren’t vaccinated. And again in November of this year, although I was vaccinated in August. The tiredness dragged on for weeks. The loneliness was terrible, despite conversations through the door with dear colleagues and my great parents who brought me groceries; and despite my two rabbits, which contributed a lot to my mental well-being. The loneliness made me very sad. I miss my colleagues and the students and feel like a failure because I got Covid twice. I find it problematic that as a convalescent I only get vaccinated once. So I cannot visit friends and family abroad because two vaccinations are often required. I am angry that Covid is taking so much from our children. You are ultimately the ones who suffer.

Mona Schweiger, head of the Evangelical House for Children in Ottobrunn: It was a year with many upheavals that one always had to adjust to. In September our team was happy that all the children were allowed to come again. We are an open house with a crèche, kindergarten and after-school care center. When we were allowed to reopen the groups and they met again in the garden, it was an enrichment for everyone. I would have gladly spared the children that the groups have to be separated again because of the high incidences. Because we are a big company, we are used to a basic level of flexibility and so were able to master the challenges this year quite well. In the team, we did not play down personal fears, for example of carrying the virus home. When I was desperate, when another newsletter stipulated new rules and you had the feeling that the government itself doesn’t exactly know what it wants, it helped me that we managed the facility as a team and that I could talk to someone. Humor is also a good resource. At first I thought Corona was a transitional burden. Now I think we have to integrate it better and it has to be an item on the agenda like other things.

Rysoletta Doelfs, 94, resident in the old people’s and nursing home of the Inner Mission in Planegg: Used to the pandemic? No, you don’t get used to such a cheese. On some days I already think to myself that I actually imagined the rest of my life to be different. But then I rap up again. When eating, we all sit separately again, spread over the dining room and foyer, so that we keep our distance. But it’s hard to talk to, because we all don’t hear well. I’m lucky because I live on the ground floor, so I can always go out onto the terrace. I feed the birds, we’re right here by the forest, there is a lot going on with me. My daughter also often picks me up and we go shopping. That is the most important thing: to be able to get out and not be locked in like last year. That was bad. I think people died more from loneliness than from Corona. My wishes for 2022? That my large family – I have eleven great-grandchildren – are all spared the virus and are healthy.

Florian Selzer, employment agent at the Munich Employment Agency: This year was definitely a challenge, there was a lot of uncharted territory. A lot of flexibility was required of my colleagues and I; I had to support other areas, for example on the subject of short-time allowance. Above all, however, we had to find new ways of accessibility. How can you still be close to people when our houses are closed? For example, we then organized virtual group meetings and made video advice possible. There is now an app called “BA mobil”, and the online job search notification will come from January. These new digital communication channels are also an opportunity that Corona has brought, I think. This is also well received by our customers. Overall, however, the pandemic brought a lot of advice. My team is responsible for the retail and health sectors. The people we look after have suffered many blows of fate when someone who has worked in a profession for decades suddenly loses their job. Of course, that also affects you. You want to understand history and help people. It’s a challenge for both sides. When it succeeds, I experience that people are also very grateful.

Katharina Kohl, team leader at the Johanniter Corona test centers in Ottobrunn and Brunnthal: I studied geography and finished my bachelor’s degree last winter semester. I started looking for a job, but it wasn’t that easy. At the beginning of April I ended up with the Johanniter. The team is very nice and the tasks are interesting. Today I am the team leader for the test stations at the Phoenix-Bad in Ottobrunn and at Ikea in Brunnthal and also responsible for company tests. In other words, I no longer carry out tests myself, but primarily make sure that we always have enough material and staff and try to steer the flow of customers a bit. Among my colleagues there are many who have lost their actual jobs because of Corona, they now work full-time with us like me. The rest of our staff are students plus some volunteers or volunteers. In the meantime, demand has picked up again. A special experience for me was the “One Young World” congress in July in the Olympic Park, where young people from all over the world gathered. We managed to set up four tents in a minimum of time and test more than a thousand people every day. Sure, the quick tests do not provide 100% certainty, they are just a snapshot. But they make it possible to go to the cinema or a café with a good feeling.

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Yvonne Bauer, Secretary of the Haar Middle School: I experience the corona pandemic here in the secretariat as an exceptional situation. I love my job. But as it is at the moment, it is not a permanent state. We are informed at short notice by higher-level authorities and then have to implement it: eat or die. What I’m doing at the moment has little to do with my normal work. Sometimes I ask myself: Am I a medical assistant or a school administration specialist? If the teachers didn’t support me, it wouldn’t work. We now test every day at school because we play it safe. The teachers are busy with it for 20 minutes in the morning. If a student has a second line, i.e. it is positive in the quick test, he comes to the secretariat. Then you have to call the parents immediately. A PCR test must be carried out. It is to be reported to the health department. It can take a week for a notification to come from there. But we have to act quickly. Students and parents immediately have many questions. Do relatives have to be in quarantine? We also need to identify contact persons for the student: who sat next to him? Who was with him longer than a quarter of an hour? It sucks your nerves. I’m usually never sick, but it caught me during the fall break.

Lucas Sander, Q 11 student at the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium in Unterhaching: I was in ninth grade when the pandemic started. Now half of the eleventh grade is over. Before Christmas, almost all of the teachers pushed through the subject matter and the exam because after the turn of the year it is again uncertain whether the face-to-face lessons will be continued. Not knowing whether you can still go to school next month is scary, especially with regard to the Abitur exam. And for technology-savvy students it is now sad to see how teachers in the second year of the pandemic are still not using all the technical possibilities for good teaching. While I feel well prepared in the subjects that interest me, there have been noticeable gaps in subjects that I found difficult even before Corona. Now I am hoping for the common sense of the people so that as many people as possible can be vaccinated and we can write our Abitur exams in the presence of people. Maybe even some social life will be preserved. At the moment we are planning a high school trip to Corfu.

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Sibylle Abenteuer, managing director of the Rabenwirt restaurant in Pullach: This year demanded a lot from all of us. The employees came back from the six-month lockdown with muscle wasting and then slipped into an incredibly strong summer season. We have repeatedly changed our plans here every week, especially in the last six weeks. First we had the best bookings in 21 years with the Christmas parties, especially from many companies. They were then canceled again one hundred percent. But I’m also grateful that we can leave this year in winter. We even introduced the controls ahead of time because we noticed that this is important to many of the customers. But there have been many guests who have been vaccinated and boosted and still haven’t gone to eat. I have learned that it cannot be taken for granted that everything will always continue as expected. That scenarios can certainly happen in our world history that bring us a life that is no longer as comfortable as in the last few decades. There are many people who have a problem with their situation or have become more aggressive. We have a lot more narcissistic outbursts from guests who want their needs met but are unwilling to respect the needs of the staff.

Maria Götz, nurse in the closed geriatric ward of the clinic in Haar: I’ve been working on the corona ward since the pandemic broke out. I was mostly on the positive side, as we have always said, with those with corona. In the morning we started asking about symptoms. But it was also very important, because the patients were actually with us because of psychiatric illnesses, to keep in touch and to have conversations. Is the mood stable or is it tipping over? You are all isolated alone in rooms. We were also very busy getting dressed and undressed in front of each room. In other words: protective gown, gloves, mask, protective goggles, protective hood. We were always on the move. You know there is this lack of care, but nothing changes. Of course you noticed that last year with the clapping. But when compared to the willingness to ask so much of yourself as a caregiver, the clapping takes a back seat. In every shift I take responsibility for others. Many colleagues have also restricted themselves in their private life. As little contact with friends and family as possible so that you don’t get infected. What my colleagues and I noticed, however, was the gratitude from our patients, colleagues and managers.

Protocols: Angela Boschert, Daniela Bode, Irmengard Gnau, Bernhard Lohr, Anna-Lea Jakobs, Annette Jäger and Martin Mühlfenzl