M. Beisenherz: Sorry, I’m here privately
I often think about surfing
A cordoned off playground during the Corona lockdown in May 2020
© Imago Images
Four years of Corona – already or just yet? Our columnist looks back on a time that refuses to pass.
By Micky Beisenherz
It’s a Thursday in March. The sun is shining. Nobody takes the train. The planes don’t leave. Everyone fears the next wave. Is it time to hoard toilet paper again? Are dolphins already being spotted in the Rhine-Herne Canal?
It’s been four years now, a time that still seems so close and yet so incredibly far away. Just yesterday we sat together in the café over a first cup of coffee in the morning and talked with fascination and amusement about this madness that had us in suspense at the time – if we still had it – and started quite quickly with us suddenly being in the morning not sat in the café more before work because no one was allowed to go to work anymore – and the café was also closed. Lockdown. Because somewhere in Wuhan someone said: “I’ll have the bat soup – what could go wrong?”
After all, it was wonderful spring weather in March 2020: people go for a walk. Even if only in small groups. Playgrounds wrapped in tape because they were closed. The studio audience cackled from television broadcasts. Some of it should never come back. Smear infection. Distance. Mask deals. Knuffelkontakte. Easter with great-grandma and the whole family. Instead of Merci advertising romance, suddenly a superspreading event.
The public order offices are closing restaurants and hostels, so with special permission I find myself alone in a twenty-story hotel like Jack Nicholson in “Shining” in Düsseldorf. The Ross Antonys and Carpendales disappear from the guest list on the talk shows – the rise of the experts. Drosten vs. Streeck. Lauterbach against Kekulé. Yes, what does Alexander S. Kekulé actually do?
Nurses are still paid shitty
The nursing staff are still paid shitty today, but at least there was a good clap. Cult carer Ricardo Lange, who made Jens Spahn long at the federal press conference. Alexander Jorde and Doc Caro. The first lunatics start calling people as Distance breaker to take photos on picnic blankets and post them online. In Munich who is not allowed to sit on the park bench and read. Please just go outside purposeful. And everyone bakes bread. At Maischberger they fear that the entire Federal Republic could flock to Tübingen because Boris Palmer is leaving two outdoor restaurants there open for testing purposes. Oh, Dr. Federle.
Lockdown 2. The never-ending winter of 2021. Homeschooling makes every adult’s nightmares of having to go back to school come true. The incidences Opening discussion orgies, the MPK, Merkel and Söder. Breathing opening matrix, Easter rest, Merkel says sorry. Michael Müller and the grotesque incidence folding plan. Team Freedom. Team beware. And vice versa. Depending on your mood. Fax Republic of Germany, caught in analogous structural sclerosis. The comeback of drive-in cinemas. Attila Hildmann. The Wendler cracks. Just like Hamburg police officers who shoot around the park with their police vehicle full of 50 items after young people who – be careful, keep your distance! – the three of them high-fived.
Lauterbach sleeps on the camp bed behind the Lanz studio. We suddenly know the Ethics Council, Hildburghausen and all (!) Prime Ministers. Even Tobias Hans. We are MAD. Vaccination promises the way out of the pandemic. The so-called “lateral thinkers” don’t want to support this. The others believe that they can convince them otherwise by insulting them. Compulsory vaccination debates. Us against them. Lanz, who grilled the mayor of Halle for 45 minutes because he quickly got a leftover vaccination dose at the end of the day instead of calling all 562 others who were ahead of him in the vaccination order. “Kimmich should get vaccinated!” And now Omicron too.
And then, not suddenly, but somehow, it’s over. Gradual openings. It is April 2022. We sing karaoke in the Thai oasis and return to life. Not all. And not everyone looks back on this time with such amusement. Domestic violence went through the roof, depression, entire school classes were lost, integration was suspended to protect against infection, tens of thousands died alone. My Uncle Heiner and his terribly dreary funeral on a November day protected from infection.
Balancing of interests. Cash collapse. Was it all worth it? Was it worth it? Have we ever really worked through this? Are we able to learn from the mistakes of the past in order to treat each other differently in the future? I have my doubts. The realization comes in waves. And stays about that long.