Post Corona

Our story part 1

It was March 10th, my birthday. After school we wanted to go out to celebrate, but I felt myself quite bad, so we decided to go home instead. I measured my temperature and understood why Ifelt so, I had small fever 37.0. I thought it is just because of stress, so I took some extra time to rest, had some tea and went to bed. Next day I assumed it was gone so I went back to school. But in few hours I again welt such weakness. So I decided to take some time off and go home. After 3-4 hours of good nap I woke up much better, but not quite fit. So next morning I went to see my family doctor. They asked what are my symptoms and when they heard that I have fever and sore throat, they gave me mask and asked to wait outside. After 30 mins one nurse came out, from distance gave me my sick leave and said that they cannot do anything more.

So I just went home.

After few days Marten started feeling bad to. That’s when we got a bit suspicious. He called his doctor and went to see her. He also got a mask and was asked to wait in a separe room alone. Later doctor came to this room and from distance talked to him. After conversation and short check up, she said that its probably just a flu and some time in bed should help.

But it didn’t. The range of our symptoms got bigger. Soon we had headache, pain in the muscles, weird pain in the eyeballs, cough, pain in chest, runny nose and the most annoying of all - we totally lost our ability to smell or taste anything. The burger tasted like hay and coffee like boiled water. Even the simplest joys in life were taken. I called my doctor again. She said that they can’t see potential corona patients. I need to call testing center and talk to them. I did call. They gave next number. We called half of the day, maybe 33 times. Then they answered and after hearing our situation told us to stay 2 weeks home. No testing.

In few days we heard that one guy in our class was tested Corona positive. Now we had sure contact to ‘positive’ person and with all our symptoms they should test us. We called testing center. They said we should talk to our city areas Gesundaheitsamt ( Health department). They heard our story, wrote everything down and promised to call soon back. After some days they called back, asked how we felt and promised to call back after some time. After few more days they called again and asked for a test result from positive tested person. We didn’t have it. This person didn’t get it either, he just got phone call. The labs are overloaded and not all paper run as they should. By this time the number of positive tested people in our class got to 4 (from 10). This time I called to Health department and registered myself (before Marten was contact person from our side).The same process was for me - they wrote everything down and promised to call back. In 2-3 days they called back and asked some additional questions. This day we heard that our friend, with whom we study after school together, chat during the breaks and share food with was ‘positive’ too.

After some days the doctor from our health department called us. By this time we were sick 2,5 weeks and started feeling a bit better. And since we were not in critical condition, they just declared us potentially Corona positive without any testing.

So here we are. After 3 weeks we finally feel that we are better. But we still don’t know if we had the virus or not.

We finally start to get our taste back and can enjoy food and drinks again. How little things matter again.

We were also quite nicely pleased that after 3 weeks 24/7 in the 40m2 studio apartment together, we still feel quite comfortable. I say it takes 2 pairs of noise cancelling headphones and stress relieving cat.

Our life actually didn’t change much in quarantine. Now we just study online. Although it is very hard to have 6-hour webinar in German. Every day.

But we keep reminding ourselves why we came here and why we do it. It helps to get over frustration and bad emotions. We are trying to be good to ourselves. I learn it from Pluto. We take nice walks in parks and in nature. We are really blessed with a beautiful spring this year.

Situation in Germany

There is less traffic. People outside do keep 2m distance. They check how many people are in the store and don’t let too many inside at the same time. Bakery across the street is still open, but only for takeaway.Older people wear masks.

We keep an eye on the situation in the World. We see that Germany has around 99 000 cases right now (05.04.2020). But compared to other countries the number of deaths is considerably low. We think that it is because of the numerous reasons - strong healthcare and social systems, a systematic approach to the problem, but most of all - there is a fundamental sense of respect for the rules. HERE is link to the source.

COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC STATISTICS

I also read one good article on Deutsche Welle, which says, that people in Germany are satisfied with how the government handles the crisis. The link to the article is HERE. I add some interesting chats from DW to illustrate this situation. 

Our story part 2

Few days ago we got our final call from the doctor, who checked if we are recovering and everything is good. So it seems that they eventually keep an eye on patients. Maybe we didn’t get the testing as we wanted, but we felt that we were taken care of anyway. We always had a place to call. They asked if we have food and if we need help with that. They called every few days to check on us. Even if the process is a bit long and there is a lof of bureaucracy involved, it seems that in the end it works well.