Covid 19: A German Perspektive (Part 3)

The pandamic was devastating for so many people on so many levels, I don’t want to seem like I am not acknowledging that when writing this post. I actually have already written two parts which you can read where I talked about the effect the pandemic had on my student life *here* and how the German public reacted to some of the rules that were made *here*. In this final part, I want to focus on the positive change that the pandemic might have brought to us as a society. I guess in all of that suffering there has to be some lessons or skills we have learned that might help us going forward.

All of the things I want to talk about are speculation on the basis of what we have developed in the last one and a half years, starting with digitalization. As I have mentioned in part one of this commentary, many schools and universities have adapted to digital learning, they have trained their staff, bought the licenses to various different digital programs such as zoom, and made everything available online. I know professors who have never before even thought about the possibility of digitalizing their work and now they make PowerPoint presentations and upload them every week. It’s because they have to and there is no other possibility to teach the students when it’s forbidden to meet up in a classroom. But of course, we could keep that up when the pandemic is over and try out a kind of hybrid model, which is already talked about in some places. It would mean that every student could decide by themselves what kind of learning environment they would prefer and that actually sounds awesome to me.

Home Office is another thing that was deemed impossible in many workplaces until it had to be tried out for the purpose of staying safe. And mostly everyone was puzzled when it indeed was possible, not only that but for many people, it was just more convenient. They would not have to drive 2 hours to work, which either made them have more free time or time to sleep, both great things. It might also have been easier for people to work in a comfortable environment such as their home rather than sitting in a cubical office the whole day. Companies could even save up on the money which they pay for renting an office building, so it does sound like a win-win situation for most people, right? Why have we not tried it out sooner? I know for some people mainly parents having a place to go to work can be necessary, but maybe we could have a hybrid model here too? Where people could decide themselves: Do I want to go into an office(which can be a temporary one, still cheaper than renting a whole building) or do I want to work from home?

Having work and learning digitalized can also have a positive effect for people who just can’t go there in person for different reasons. Maybe they can’t find an apartment near enough to be there in time every day. Maybe they can’t leave their house, maybe they have to care for someone and so on. I have learned that people from different german states are studying at my University in Hamburg now because it has become possible for so many! Sign languages for example is a subject that is not available to study everywhere, maybe people who want to study that but were not able to get here can now study it from home. My husband got a job in Hannover, which is about 2 hours away from here and would be too far to drive every day, but now he can participate from home too. How great is that?

Corona has also shown us where our system in general might have failed. When it comes to schools for example, because of the virus the public now found out that many schools actually have broken windows that can’t be opened. It came up because when the school took place in person, the teachers were asked to ventilate the rooms properly so that the risk of infection was as low as possible. Some schools just could not do that, which is horrible to know, but hopefully, it will be fixed now. People also began to think more about abuse at home, which has skyrocketed because of the many lockdowns, so hopefully, they will take measures against that too. It introduced wearing masks in public which many Asian countries already do for years and many people in Germany have said they want to keep them here in the future too, especially in cold seasons.

It might sound like I only want to see the good things, but sometimes it’s necessary and it helped me keep my sanity in this kind of situation we all were and still are in. I am sorry for all the people who lost family and friends in these times, to everyone who lost their jobs, had to close their shops or lost part of their childhood, could not live the proper student life, were not able to travel and see the world. The crisis has taken much from us, but we have to see the light in the dark. I hope you still enjoyed this kind of german perspective of the things that have happened. The idea was actually sparked because many people in Germany are currently raging against the vaccination and I wanted to make a kind of journal-like entry about what the vaccination was like for me. But then I thought I should talk about how the situation in Germany is in general and thus you have my three parts now. I think I might still do the vaccination dairy thing, so keep an eye out if you want to know more about what that was like for me.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress