The corona virus madness has now reached Germany entirely. On Friday the 13th it was announced that all kindergartens, schools and universities will be closed at least until the end of the Easter holidays (19.04.2020). Of course this is the right decision and it took way too long to reach this point. However now there is this slight problem that the kids are at home and most of the parents are working, so what to do? It won’t be easy for many families, some will have to take their paid holidays for this now, and some have to take unpaid holidays or take sick leave. Depending on the company they might also work from home (home office) or can stay home with less payment. Now we come to the problematic people such as us who are self-employed. Business has to go on for us but how to work with the kids at home? We do not get paid holidays; we do not get any paid sick leave or any other kind of support. The monthly bills still have to be paid, especially the health insurance which cost a ridiculous amount for self-employed people.
For now we will just try our best and see how we can handle it. Public life is more or less on a standstill right now, all kind of events are cancelled, gyms and other sport facilities are also closed. For some unknown reason there are some crazy people out there buying all the supermarkets empty each day so when “normal” people go to buy groceries after work they are confronted with empty shelves. Even from the government came a statement to stop these “hamster purchases” as there is no shortage of food or any other things needed for daily life and that it only causes problems for other people. It is very doubtful that those people listen to reason. My friend’s better half works at a supermarket and she is really angry with the people buying several shopping carts full at once and some of them even get violent when they are stopped by the staff.
For the next five weeks we have to see how everything develops. Thankfully both my wife and I are anyways introverts and only go out in order to buy groceries or for our business. We also have to “take care” of my parent’s groceries from now on as they are both in the critical age group with both being way in their 70s (actually closer to 80). On a side note I turned 33 yesterday but well we didn’t do anything special except that my mother had made cherry cake and the rest of the day I was busy with work as usual.
How is the Coronavirus situation in your country?
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Crazy Chinese Family 