The Levels of the Corona Virus

So, some 3 weeks ago my wife and few other people from her company were for a few days on a business trip in Milan. Airport. Fair. Hotel. Fair. Airport. She comes back home, Netflix and chill, everything as usual.  Few days past and we hear that this Corona virus situation has now affected the northern part of Italy, with areas around Milan included. The next day she came back from work feeling tired as f… and with a strong cough. Now I understand when you say that we are overreacting and that nothing is going to happen to us. I also understand that the chances of us getting this specific virus are slim to none, and that even if one does get this virus, he/she/it should still be okay and survive it, BUT what if its your own wife?

Are you willing to take the statistics so blindly once we start to speak about your own skin? What if you are the company which my wife works for? Are you going to take a chance that some of your employees, who were on a fair in Milan the last week, are not affected by the corona virus just because chances and statistics say so? Okay let us not overreact. First lets check if the symptoms of this corona virus match with what she has. I’m not the one who likes to google stuff when I have some pains or injuries. You know that feeling when you google knee pain, or lower back pain and you end up having symptoms of brain aneurysm, together with lupus, mixed with a little bit of cancer. Never diagnose yourself using google is my health advise to you. I mean generally, not just now. I am not a doctor, nor do I have the authority to speak on the matter, but to me all of these symptoms for different flues, or influenzas that we have googled looked all the same. So naturally we couldn’t for sure say does she, or does she not have the virus.

Wait. If, officially we can’t say if she has it, or doesn’t have it, then can we officially say anything about me? I work in retail. On the front lines with the customers of all ages, shapes and moods. Theoretically if I don’t know that I have some virus and spread it, it would not be considered irresponsible from me, but what if I know that I have precisely this thing which everybody is raving about and decide to ignore it, or not act accordingly. In theory you could get sued by some governing body for something like that. Don’t quote me on this one, but I think we all do have some legal responsibility for each other in situations like this. To be honest I was more worried about not doing something by the book, then about being sick. What is the protocol for this? I came to Germany some five years ago. A month later one million Syrians came following. In the next few years I had learned how the German system works… the hard way. I think you all know the quote from that famous American poet: ”I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me.” In a situation like this the best thing is that you don’t think for yourself. When stuff affects bigger groups of people, all you should do is provide information to some institution who will then tell you what to do, or not to do and then you get the hell out of that situation and mind your own bussines. Now, as long as you act accordingly, whatever happens is not your responsibility. If we take the family out of the whole story, I have a responsibility towards my company and my customers. Don’t worry I haven’t visited the swimming pool in more then 2 months. More about it in my next article. Anyways. Should I take the chances and decide for myself by myself that I don’t have this thing and that it is okay for me to go to work? How should I inform my boss-lady about this? Should I even inform my boss-lady? It could be just a normal flu. I mean, it probably is just that. Without me even being sure if I have corona virus, or not, why should I even raise so much stress around this thing and possibly get my company associated with it? Man. The stuff I have to deal with on a Thursday night. FML. We have decided that we will leave this matter alone, for tonight. She spoke with some of her colleagues, but nothing official. Just thoughts and opinions. We found out that from the whole Milan crew she was the only one who got sick. It was a getting a bit late by now. We decided that the necessary institutions are going to be informed tomorrow. There is nothing more we can do on this matter now.

The next day was Friday. I woke up with a sore through, feeling a bit sick and fairly drained. To paraphrase my main man Ice-Cube “I knew that today was not gonna be a good day.” Never mind if  my wife does, or doesn’t have it, now I have it too. I was still not sure should I go to work, or not, but now I am legitimately and officially sick. That solved me a lot of dread. Thank the lord. I made us some tea and we started with the phone calls. First my wife calls her company and officially informs them of the situation. They are primarily worried about her well-being, but still they don’t know how to react as her employer. How should they react? They were also in a bit of limbo, but from all the people who were in Milan she was the only who one became sick. What to do now? Should they send all of their employees home?  Maybe only those who were in Milan? They spoke about some 2 weeks incubation time, home-office bla bla bla. Some possibilities were found, but the best thing for now is to get us tested and we will see what happens next. Okay lets call our doctor. He said he doesn’t do any corona virus tests and that, if we come to visit them now and later we turn out to be positive they would have to close their “praxis” for two weeks. They told us to call the Office for Health Department. First all of their lines were busy. We assumed that they just overloaded with calls from people asking them what to do. Eventually we were able to reach them, just to get escorted back to the place we originally came from… No. Its not pička materina. Even though that word was used by someone once the phone call was over. Can’t remember was it my wife or me. Anyways We call our doctor again. He says that he doesn’t do it because he doesn’t have the equipment for it. Okay. We didn’t know whom to call next so we called one hospital and they, understandably, asked us to stay away because they have patients with serious issues and if we would to come over there and something was wrong with us, the entire hospital would have to be quarantined for the two weeks. But in the end they turned out to be very helpful, because they advised us to try with either the Office of Health department, or our doctor. Another hour we were trying to find someone to tell us what to do. Nothing came from it. I have to go to work in a little bit, or to say it better, I have to call in sick for work in a little bit. What should I tell people on my work? That I am just sick? Officially whatever the reasons for my absence, or sickness are, I am allowed to have them disclosed from my employer, but in a situation like this where I am possibly having something that media, if you act legally irresponsible, tears you/us apart for. I called in sick, and wrote my boss-lady an e-mail where I explain my situation and that I probably don’t have anything, but that I don’t want to take the responsibility for it. I am sick as it is, so I am not going to go to work, but I couldn’t even get my doctor to confirm that I am sick. He doesn’t want to take me in. Why should I tell everyone at work whats going on and create some unnecessary panic? I spoke with my boss-lady later. She wished my wife and me luck and a speedy recovery and we said to remain in contact the following week.

Once we have solved our issues with our work-places, we went back on our quest to find some brave, kind and gentle soul which would take us in. Imagine this. We had one doctor putting his phone down on us once they found out that we were not their patients. Imagine the arrogance. Do they know who I am? I understand people not wanting us to come to them, but just putting your phone down mid-call as a doctor is the lowest a doctor can go. Alo, Herodot this and that. Never mind. In one way I wasn’t really pissed at them because deep down I knew that it’s not their fault. They are trying their best but they also don’t know what to do, and they don’t want to take any responsibility for anything because in reality it’s not their place to take the responsibility. From what we heard all the possible lines were overflown with worried people who don’t want to create panic, but they need some reassurance that everything is going to be okay. Each generation has its noise, this is the noise of our times. Let us survive the weekend and then on Monday we will start calling around again. To be honest the Olympics are not what they used to be, so why should Herodot still be seen like he once was? If you know what I mean. These is not the time, nor the place to be hypocritical. We quarantine ourselves and started to binge Game of Thrones. Sorry Netflix if you feel betrayed. Its just that Amazon prime had a very very good offer. For 4,99 you could watch all the episodes of Game of Thrones for a whole month. Now that’s an offer that the old school will have problems understanding haha. Anyways.

Weekend was over. Monday came and we were still alive. Fuck Joffrey. I know that you are just a kid, but still fuck you. Tyrion Lannister, you da real MVP. We started calling around. Again we were redirected towards the same people, over and over again. By now I don’t even care do we have it, or not. I just want somebody to take the responsibility for my state of being. To be honest a part of me enjoyed seeing Germans lost, confused and in a bit of a discord over this whole corona situation. Nobody taking any responsibility for anything. Understandably, because this is not a German problem, only. It is the problem of our modern world. Picture this. Remember those days in your elementary school when one kid came to school sick and then immediately 5-6 of yous were sick. And then sometimes you would have weeks when there was only half of the classroom in attendance. And then for that week the teacher slows down with the planned curiculum because she doesn’t want to have such a huge portion of her class to have to catch up with the other half in the following weeks. Now put this picture on a global scale, add some airports to it, a little bit of globalization, with a touch of media click-bait and there you have it. Again I am not a doctor and everything I say should not be taken in such a manner, but I personally think that in the end this corona virus turned out to be a great test for the whole world. We need to find, create, or invent the mechanisms that will help us deal with this types of situations. My presumption is that the people will always get sick, but we will learn how to better protect not only our lives, but our daily lives, routines and mechanisms, because I don’t believe that there ever will be a day when  half of the world doesn’t come to work for an entire week and the other half slows is down with their planned curiculum. That ain’t happening.

Oh yeah. In the end we found somebody and we got tested and its all good and gravy. Man. A unnedded-unneccesery-unwanted-fuck-yo-mama Rollercoaster of a week. We got tested on either tuesday or monday. The results that we are not positive on the corona virus came in like a day or two. Was it even necessary? Did we overreacted? I don’t know, but I do know that I didn’t choose the corona life, the corona life chose me. I just tryed to deal with it accordingly with the mechanisms that I had at my disposal. I think that for the next „coronamania“  our mechanisms are going to be a little bit more fine-tuned then they were now and a lot more people will know what to do, or at least what not to do and what to expect. Thank you for your reading. My name is Tomo Bujas. This is portal dance.hr. Peace

Tomo Bujas

7.3.2020

Düsseldorf

@tomobujas