My friend, an orthopedic surgeon, has been living and working for over seven years in the German county of Bentheim, which is on the border with the Netherlands.
When Angela Merkel announced the next extension of the lockdown (until March 7, for sure, and most likely until April 14), I decided to write a column about this for RT and immediately called my friend.
It is one thing to get the news from the mouth of the Federal Chancellor, and quite another to understand how her decisions affect the lives of ordinary Germans.
My friend works in praxis (a kind of small private clinic), and his wife goes to work in the city hospital in Nordhorn.
At the same time, they live in the village, so they see the situation with the lockdown from all sides and communicate with a very wide range of people.
The first thing he started his story with was the tiredness of the Germans, the Syrians, the Russians and the Turks.
The well-functioning and organized life, which Germany was so proud of, does not tolerate COVID-19.
Children, as it was in Russia, study at a distance with grief in half.
Adults are required to pick up small children from working kindergartens at exactly 13:00.
Are you working?
Come up with something.
By the way, it is impossible to write the mother-in-law out of Russia.
So you have to run away from work, and then return to it again.
In children's chats, parents discuss that schools probably won't reopen until April break.
This Saturday (how many times already) everything that is possible was sold out in stores.
A friend and his wife had to walk among the almost empty shelves of the hypermarket.
All small shops are closed, and you can order the same plumbing only on Amazon with home delivery.
No impulse purchases for you.
On Sunday there was a snow collapse, and for three days Germany was turned off: the streets were cleaned to a minimum.
It got to the point that they didn't even take out the garbage.
At the same time, by Russian standards, the snowfall was quite bearable, just the Germans were not used to that either.
There are not enough housing and communal services employees and equipment for such an "apocalypse".
The population is slowly being vaccinated with Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, as the Germans have also invested in their development and production.
There are not many covid patients at the Nordhorn hospital, but there are traditionally not enough intensive care beds (and without COVID-19).
Hospitals were optimized (closed) before the pandemic, and field and temporary hospitals, as in Moscow, were not deployed.
People (calm and completely satisfied by default) in this situation are enraged by high taxes: they have not decreased in any way, and the quality of life and public services has fallen.
In Germany, by the way, there is no concept of "hazardous production" - it does not affect the time of retirement.
Radiographers, welders and other people are equated with secretaries.
The latest increase in the retirement age has made the bus driver angry - he will only retire at 70.
Well, and a little touch to the collective German portrait.
Everyone walks around shaggy, and some with a sloppy beard: hairdressers and barbers are fined when they catch someone cutting a haircut at home.
Well, there can be no question of opening your office on the quiet.
In general, the German neighbors of my comrade are complaining about this state "salvation" and are going to "arrange Holland for the authorities."
I think you know very well what is happening in the Netherlands.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.