Shutdown two, week eighteen

The situation is much worse than last week: Seven-day R is above 1, meaning that the number of infections is on the rise.

Yet, our government plans to ease the restrictions.

And vaccination is not going anywhere – our vaccination strategy is a colossal failure, both on a state and the country level.

Unfortunately, like in other big infrastructure projects (e.g., BER), our state institutions appear entirely overwhelmed and dysfunctional.

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(Cologne, Lockdown, 3/6/21)

Shutdown two, week seventeen

We’re in a quite paradoxical situation: While we expect the third wave of infections, we nevertheless ease the contact restrictions.

Why is it so difficult to understand and accept that proximity and contact frequency drive the pandemic? No reason to blame the government for that, I think.

One group, however, is definitely to blame, and that’s the employers who do not allow their employees to work from home, even if it was possible.

I will make sure that I do not buy any goods or services from these companies in the future!

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(Cologne, future Home Office, 2/28/21)

Shutdown two, week sixteen

The number of infections is slowly increasing again. Surprise! Not.

We knew that the new mutations would be more contagious, but still, our government refuses to acknowledge and prepare for the third wave.

A year ago Friday, right-wing terrorists murdered six people in Hanau (Hesse). There were vigils in their honor all over Germany as we still battle the underlying systemic racism in our security forces.

In Northrhine-Westphalia, the state government actively works against all measures to prevent the coming climate crisis and supports the fossil fuel industry, mainly RWE and E.ON.

Our first minister, Armin Laschet, has been caught red-handed, twisting the law to act against climate activists.

Our minister of the interior, Herbert Reul, is trying to outlaw activism outright.

Oh, NRWE – there’s a lot of work ahead!

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(Red Rebels, Cologne, 2/20/21)

Shutdown two, week fifteen

As expected, we extended the lockdown to March 7th, for now.

We have also set a new target for infection rates (less than 35 per 100,000 people), making a lot of sense.

Still, I am amazed at how many people feel that they can argue or plead with a virus. Sars-CoV-19 is a deadly airborne virus, and there’s nothing our government or we can do to prevent the spread other than limiting inter-person contact.

On a side note, winter has finally come. Did I mention that I hate the cold?

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(Cologne, Ruuvi, 2/12/21)

Shutdown two, week twelve

The lockdown is going well; we see a slight reduction in the infections.

But there’s still a lot of work ahead of us to flatten the curve.

Some of the new Covid-19 mutations are highly contagious, so we need to improve our mask game with the new double-mask trend recommended by Dr. Fauci. And FFP2 masks in shops and public transport.

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(Double mask, Cologne, 1/26/21)

Shutdown two, week eleven

Eleven weeks and no respite in sight – on Tuesday, our government will reconvene with the states and evaluate further tightening of the contact restrictions. I hope they will finally make working from home mandatory for all office workers.

On Saturday, our governing party elected its new leader. They opted for continuity and the least controversial candidate and avoided the ultra-conservative Chairman of the Supervisory Board at BlackRock Germany.

Also, Winter is here, with the first snow of the year. Only two more months to Spring.

I wrote this blog post while dancing to Melodic Sunday at Techno Lieben und Leben – a great place to start the day!

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(First snow, Cologne, 1/17/21)

Shutdown two, week ten

Still no end in sight; today, our government has tightened the contact restrictions again and extended the lockdown to the end of January. Quite rightly so, the infection rates are still way too high.

Even though we all know that the virus transmits from person to person, some politicians from our governing party advocate to lessen the restrictions and have more people die instead. I guess that’s all about shareholder value.

Also, RWE uses the lockdown to destroy more villages around the Garzweiler open-pit mine, even though we know that we won’t need the lignite anymore. Is that about shareholder value, too?

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(Photo op, Zülpicher Platz, 1/10/21)

Shutdown two, week nine

It came, and it went, my first virtual New Year’s Eve. Relatively uneventful, zooming with family and friends, and watching a Techno live stream on Twitch.

The start of the new year was not a big thing; we’re still in the first year of life in the age of pandemics, and nothing is going to change a lot in the short term. I hope that by the end of 2021, we will have made significant progress towards solving both crises, Covid-19, and the Climate Emergency!

To keep the momentum going, we started 2021 off with our first climate strike of the year, asking for #solidarity

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(Climate strike, Haymarket, 1/2/21)

Shutdown two, week eight

My first ever entirely virtual Christmas – and it went quite well! And so will New Year’s, I hope.

As the lockdown goes on and social distancing rules remain in effect, I’m getting less and less anxious and more adapted to the “new normal” – I guess it will feel somewhat strange in late 2021 / early 2022 to meet people again in person regularly.

On a sad note, I have to mention that someone performed an arson attack on the Mahnwache in Hambacher Forst – luckily nobody got hurt, but why do people do something like this?

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(Screenshot, extended Christmas walk, 12/26/20)

Shutdown two, week six

As expected, the current lockdown measures were not enough to slow the infection rates, and we will go into a much harder lockdown beginning Wednesday. Schools and shops will close, and contact restrictions will remain in place over Christmas and New Year’s.

Then there is still the other crisis, the looming climate emergency.

Two years ago, Fridays for Future staged their first climate strike in Cologne. In honor of this birthday, we dropped a giant banner on Deutzer Brücke to remind us to always #FightFor1Point5 and our politicians to #MakeParisReal.

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(Fridays For Future, Heumarkt, 12/11/20)