Được phát hành: 21.03.2020
I'm looking out the window and I see flocks of colorful butterflies flying over our garden, the pool, and the sea. An 'amazing' spectacle, as my neighbor excitedly shouts, trying to 'capture' the small blue-black and orange-black butterflies with her phone. But it doesn't work, they are too small and too fast...
So just look and be amazed without a phone!!!
They are probably Monarch butterflies on their way to their winter quarters because autumn has just begun here in Australia.
We have a bright blue sky, plenty of sunshine, at 28 °C, and the sea is roaring in the background. It's Saturday afternoon, March 21, the beginning of spring at home, on the other side of the world, and everything could be wonderful...
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If it weren't for this disgusting specter with the beautiful name: 'Corona Crown', which has been wreaking havoc on the whole world for 57 days.
It is the COVID-19 virus that stops at nothing and spreads rapidly from China to all continents. A pandemic!!! Everything has changed and continues to change daily, hourly, every minute!
News of rising numbers of infected people, new deaths, border closures, curfews, repatriation of tourists... are overwhelming.
Social life has come to a standstill or has shifted to contactless virtual level in most European and Asian countries. And humanity as a whole hopes to get rid of 'the ghosts we summoned'...
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And how are we doing? How have we experienced the crisis so far?
At the beginning, a few jokes from our friends and relatives in Germany trickled in here and there via WhatsApp.
We laughed together about them, forwarded them to other friends and relatives, 'let the dear God be a good man', and didn't care about this 'weird thing produced by the Chinese'. Well, we thought it was a bit strange that these 'crazy Chinese' suddenly erected hospitals as if they were stung by a tarantula... But it was in China, damn far away. Let them do it, it won't be that bad!
Suddenly, however, the jokes from friends and relatives that trickled in via WhatsApp increased, especially when it suddenly said that the virus had now arrived in Europe and was spreading rapidly. And especially in Italy. Italy!!! our favorite holiday destination! Now it seemed that people in Europe also realized that this was 'something bigger'.
The jokes seemed to spread in proportion to the virus.
Like a mutual encouragement, 'maybe we can just laugh away the virus together'. But it didn't disappear and also reached the seemingly invincible USA, Iceland, New Zealand, and of course Australia.
We emailed and called our friends and relatives in Germany and Europe to make sure they are doing well.
Toilet paper, pasta, rice, liquid soap, hygiene products sold out, but otherwise the situation at home was still quite relaxed. Although the number of infected people tripled from week to week.
However, the head of the Robert Koch Institute reassured us with a calm voice on television that they were researching 'feverishly', collecting statistics, exchanging information with other researchers and politicians worldwide, and that the situation was under control. Yes, the German researchers and politicians are taking care of that!!!
Now, there were no more jokes on WhatsApp, but suddenly long poetic, philosophical texts, with many encouraging emojis...
Oh dear, now it started to really concern me, the state of mind of our friends + relatives at the other end of the world seemed to be changing alarmingly!
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