They are going to close all community facilities in our city Lübeck but I’ve heard it’s the same for many other cities in Germany. From Monday, March 16 to approximately April 19, all schools, administrative bodies, museums, archives, adult education centers, swimming pools, youth leisure facilities, neighborhood offices, and gymnasiums will be closed in Lübeck according to HL-Live. Apart from that, citizens aren’t allowed to visit their relatives in retirement homes anymore. These drastic measures are taken to ensure that Covid-19 can not further spread. The last official information from March 15 is that we have 9 confirmed cases in Lübeck and 48 in the federal state Schleswig-Holstein, overall.
In other news, it’s said that all kindergartens will be closed as well. Hospital visits will be restricted as well. Further, hospitals have to postpone schedulable appointments to create capacities for Covid-19 cases. All public events are prohibited. It is suggested to refrain from private events too. All bars, clubs, discos, theaters, cinemas, fitness centers, saunas, baths, musical schools and other type of private or public education centers, gatherings of sport clubs or other leisure facilities together with gambling halls and the sex trade industry are to be closed or should cease operations. For restaurants, there will be requirements. Restaurants need to ask for contact data of restaurant visitors so that, in cases of infections, people can be identified and protected. About tables, there is a minimum distance of 2 meters that has to be fulfilled.
Diary of Dennis 
I hope you are doing well with all that’s going on around you.
Thanks! I think it’s time to play online games and wait it out 😀 Or guitar or anything we can do at home. I feel more concerned about the elders, those in need or those with bad health conditions. They will sadly suffer the most from the shutdown because it’s now difficult to contact authorities and stuff like that.
Like Taswegian, we’re staying home, which usually suits me anyway. We live in the Northeast corner of the US, and it so far has touched the three states–Maine, NH, and Vermont–only lightly; partly, I suspect, because we are small populatoins and in the winter we don’t go out much. I expect that to change soon, when the good weather finds us. I play online games, and I’ve dragged down the weaving loom, which is an excellent way to fill up spaces in the day, and raise my blood pressure, too. =) Amazing, how much you forget after a few years.
And your music, Dennis, is my online game companion. Truly.
Now, the rules are further tightened in Germany. And we expect more. But still, like you, I have no big issues with staying at home. Yesterday when I played online with my friends, I was joking around like “I battled with anxiety disease in the past as you guys know and voluntarily quarantined myself for over five years and I think I can take two weeks quarantine for sure if it happens”. They laughed and said, “Right. You’re veteran then”. Another friend chimed in and said “Guys, remember the good old World of Warcraft times when we played 8 hours or more per day? That was quarantine for us too, huh?” and there was even more laugher and I said, “Right, I think we all are prepared”.
I am glad you like my music and that you listen to my improvisations when you play games. I sometimes record those videos so that I don’t forget these ideas or so that I can get inspired by it again in the future. I didn’t expect people would like it but I am glad if people do 🙂
That’s pretty comprehensive but probably necessary. Does that mean that the community gardens will also be off-limits? I hope that the cats will still get fed. Do you wear a mask when you go out to run Dennis?
Yes, we bloggers and people with indoor hobbies will be better off than many as being at home a lot will not be so bad for us. I’ve started cataloguing my doll collection, that should keep me busy and there are always books and things to watch on TV or online. I’ve been watching a lot of old concert footage on YouTube.
No, I don’t think so. Not yet. The entrances to the gardens are open. I’ve walked through one of the areas just yesterday. I’ve only seen one cat yesterday but several people working in their gardens. I don’t think there is a high risk to catch Covid-19 there as all plots are divided by hedges, fences or both and other plants. They probably don’t define that as public gathering even if you could meet people in the alleys. But on the other side, we’re still allowed to walk outside… I’ve read yesterday that people in Spain are under house arrest now but they’re still allowed to go out for important stuff like going to get groceries, but alone, or if they need to go to work. We’re not there yet, but I’m prepared for the idea… in that worst case, it’s time to call my friends and do online gaming! 😀
So far I haven’t seen any person wearing a mask. I don’t wear a mask either. I’ve heard a professor saying that those standard masks are not effective against Covid-19, it’ll get through there. I always washed my hands regularly, but now I do it quite a bit more often.
Good point. It’ll be easier for us with several indoor hobbies and interests.
I haven’t got a mask and I heard the same thing as you. Over the summer there was a rush on masks on the mainland because of the smoke from the bushfires, not sure if those masks are the right type either. I remember from working in the railways when we had to wear them to clean graffitti. There were different filters for different things. All horrible to wear. One thing I’m glad of is that this didn’t hit us during the fires. All those people stranded in evacuation centres or on the beach at Mallacoota. It would have been a public health nightmare.
Yes, I think it’s about the size of particles and so. I once had to remove mold during a renovation. In the hardware store, we got very special suggestions on what we need for that type of work and then we got a respirator, not a mask. As you said, it’s the same with some cleaners or recently I watched people painting guitars on YouTube and it’s a big topic too when people work with lacquers. Stuff like that can go through masks and deeply into the lungs. So, as you said, respirators with filters are used.
I’ve heard, in hospitals, the point why surgeons wear normal masks is that they do a good job of keeping pathogens from the doctor’s nose and mouth from entering the surgical field. When we enter ICU as visitors, it’s also not so much to protect ourselves but to minimize the risk to harm the patient.
A quick research tells me that people would need an N95 respirator. It can filter out at least 95% of very small (0.3 micron) particles, including viruses and bacteria. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use-faq.html
Yeah… both events at the same time would have been a nightmare. I hope we never get hit my several catastrophes at once.
Stay safe! As an immuno-suppressed person for the past 16 years, I realized just yesterday that now everyone will have to learn how I’ve been living all those years, and will perhaps better understand why i sometimes seem standoffish, unfriendly when I don’t come to social events during flu season, for example. It requires discipline. I think the Italians have the right idea: sing to each other from the balconies! Love the spirit of the Italians!
Yes, or the social anxiety I battled with in the past. I’ve seen people holding 2-meter distance from each other or in fight or flight mode like “I just want to buy one thing and get out of the store ASAP” lol. Everyone seems to be as insecure as I’ve been when I battled with social anxiety lol. Just yesterday I saw someone sneezing and 4 people around that person were paralyzed of shock. What was even funnier about that was that it was a sign that all 4 people didn’t research about Covid-19 symptoms. But they all reminded me of myself back then, when a tiny sound or someone looking at me, was already enough to give me severe panic. Anyway, I understand their fears.
So, yeah, good point! Like in our both cases, where we justifiably were worried about how we can be affected by social situations due to our disease, now people experience something similar.
With your disease, you have every right to be more cautious and not come to social events during flu season. Even if our diseases are not the same… One thing is the same… Over the years, I told myself if people think I am unfriendly because I turn down an invitation, they have absolutely no clue what I am going through if I feel bad and if people break contact to me because of that, I tell myself that I don’t really need people around me with no empathy. The cynic in me also almost always thought “Who knows what kind of trouble life has scheduled for you and who knows if people around you will show empathy”. I do now think that I created a circle of friends who understand what I battled with and what I sometimes still battle within bad times. As much as they try to understand me, I do try to understand them and their problems too.
Exactly! Empathy seems to be the hardest human emotion to have. Anyway, stay healthy, and I will try, too! I thoroughly enjoy your posts and photography.
I do agree! Stay healthy too, Doug. Always nice to have a chat with you. Thanks for visiting!
Likewise, Dennis. I enjoyed my US Army time in your beautiful country, and, even 40 years later, I have fond memories of Germany and the German ;people. It didn’t hurt that I was stationed in Kaiserslautern, so close to the Deutsche Weinstrasse!
This whole thing makes me actually want to stay home and hibernate! Wish I could join in. Hang in there.
I will do something like that. Time to play online games in my free times 😀 Thank you!
Lock down! Not China style but still…
All seems sensible enough to me. Good time to get the guitar out!
Yep. That’s the good thing about indoor hobbies 😀
Talking of such things just got a Princeton reverb to replace the deluxe. It’s great! Might be time to amp up Dennis
Fantastic! I wish I could but it would be a problem in my apartment. But I really miss playing amps. When it’s about amps, I am a Fender guy as well. Very pleasing to my ears.
Things have become very surreal. It is very similar where I live too. I work from home, mostly, but I started a part-time job selling mobile homes on the weekend. Last weekend I was told not to come to work. I don’t know how long they will be closed. I don’t think they know either.
Here it’s the same. Nobody knows how long or if the date with all those rules will be expanded.
And I do agree… we all experience it like that. Very surreal.
I just left a comment but then had to log-in so I don’t know if my comment went through.
It went through 🙂