Johannes F. Woll looks at the Corona crisis from many perspectives: The 51-year-old runs a streetwear shop in downtown Wolfratshausen, which he opened in the middle of the pandemic. He also works in the event industry, so as a corona-bagged organizer, he also has direct points of contact. And he worked in nursing for a few years. Time to talk about the current situation.
SZ: Mr. Woll, how are you doing at the moment?
Johannes F. Woll: I am an incredible optimist. I think that somehow it goes on and on. But the situation is already tense at the moment. I think we recently received the 137th message from the district administration since the pandemic began. The rules are always changing. I can re-label the signs in our shop every three days. Is a face mask okay now – or is an FFP2 mask compulsory again? The irritation is very great.
You founded your clothes shop on Untermarkt in the middle of the pandemic. Daring, right?
The whole thing was my sixth foundation. We signed the lease on March 13, 2020, and the first lockdown began on March 16. That was associated with a certain creativity in terms of procurement. The hardware stores were also closed to traders. We renovated everything and rebuilt furniture. Our business plan was initially very careful. It would actually have worked if the second lockdown hadn’t come in December.
They sell streetwear. Difficult when hardly anyone takes to the streets.
That was a dilemma. Our core target group are young people between 13 and 25 years of age. They buy things to show them off. But when the places where you can show yourself are closed – the schools, clubs, bars – then there is no point running around in a cool hoodie.
In the last lockdown so far, you spontaneously converted your store into a general store and sold pasta and toilet paper there so that you could continue to open. Would you do that again?
Yes, but not because we made so much money with toilet paper. Had we closed completely, we might even have received more money from the state. But it was important to have a job during the lockdown that gave you a bit of structure.
Can you put a figure on the losses from the lockdown?
If we are lucky, we will achieve the goals of the business plan, which we actually set ourselves for the end of last year, this year. Corona set us back by a year. Because we are not organized as a GmbH, but as a community under civil law and because we did not exist in the previous year, we could only make limited use of state aid. For the first six months of this year we only received a low four-digit amount. That wasn’t even a drop in the ocean.
Are you afraid of existence?
Of course, all the time. Even now it’s juggling. We didn’t make any money. We live on savings and run into debt. I still have a second mainstay in the event industry … … who is not really getting any better at the moment … … it is even more affected. But there is at least a bit of compensation. At least the running costs are capped, my business partner has gone into an employee relationship, we have separated from our Munich office.
After completing your community service, you worked in nursing for a few years. Are two hearts beating in your chest – that of the retailer who would like to have less stringent measures and that of the former nurse who is worried about the situation in the hospitals?
Everything about my own existence is completely subordinate to what’s happening in our hospitals right now. For me it’s all about money, something that I manage – on the other hand, it’s about human life. I am watching the situation at the moment with great concern. In the past few years, a third of the intensive care beds have been dismantled. The nursing staff simply cannot anymore. When I read that we are on the verge of triage, when doctors have to decide who is still receiving intensive care and who is no longer, then I think to myself: for God’s sake. During my time in the intensive care unit, I accompanied several people as they died. Choking because you can’t breathe is a terrible death.
The intensive care beds in the district are largely occupied. Woll also worked here for a while.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
The first clinics have already announced that they will postpone operations that are not bound by time.
I have an uncle in Sweden who developed cancer 25 years ago. The health system there is actually very good. Now his thyroid has enlarged again – and he has to wait six months for an appointment because the hospitals are so full. The idea that someone from my personal environment cannot be treated adequately at the moment scares me. It also scares me that in a year and a half of the pandemic we have still not managed to protect the risk groups. I don’t understand how it can be that in some care facilities a significant part of the staff is not vaccinated.
Would you personally be in favor of compulsory vaccination?
In general, I would say that vaccination is a personal choice. But in health care one could already think about a duty. If someone decides not to be vaccinated, they definitely have to live with the consequences. Neither can I drive through a town at 200 kilometers an hour and say: This is my basic right. This disease is real. It makes me sad when people don’t acknowledge that. On the other hand, there are also many political measures that I did not or were not understandable.
For example?
The initial back and forth with the masks. At first it was said that masks were useless, then we absolutely needed them. I also found it disproportionate that clothing stores and hardware stores had to close in the meantime, but you could buy school bags and inert gas welding equipment in the discounter. Or that theaters were only allowed to be occupied by a quarter, but planes were fully occupied.
What would you want from politics and society in the future?
I would like more solidarity from society, regardless of Corona. For me that means doing everything I can to protect myself and others. That can mean that I get vaccinated – or that I do not go on vacation. I would like politics to be more open and transparent. That someone sometimes stands on a stage and says: I’m sorry, we made a mistake there.