It’s been almost exactly three weeks since I felt transported back to before the pandemic. It wasn’t the usual form of “post-corona déjà vu” – that nice feeling that spreads when you realize that the familiar and cherished everyday life of “pre-corona” is returning. No, this deja vu was different. Not a hint of comfort. Rather a rude awakening.
It was a Wednesday evening, I went spinning. As soon as I got on the bike and clicked my shoes onto the pedals, I heard it: a deep, bronchial cough. Followed by a long sniff. To my left sat an athlete hurrying to stuff a used handkerchief into the bottle holder of her spin bike. She had a cold — so bad that she shivered while warming up before training. Coughing fit followed coughing fit.
I wanted to get off, look for another bike, distance myself. Main thing: gone. But there was no more time for that. My spinning shoes were already fatally connected to the pedals, the lights went out and the course started. Damn click system. I cursed inwardly and trained – a whopping 45 minutes under the constant bombardment of droplets containing the virus.
After the training my mood was in the basement. And at the same time I was angry that I was angry at all. In February, couldn’t I have expected at least one person to catch a cold when 50 people were training and sweating together in one room? Didn’t I knowingly take the risk when I booked the course?
But most of all, I was amazed – at how quickly the reality of the pre-pandemic times had caught up with me. A time when it was normal to go into the open-plan office with a sore throat, sit down at lunch with colleagues coughing and possibly even go to the cinema in the evening. I too was part of this cycle of “infecting” and “being infected” for a long time. I didn’t question it and instead stashed sage drops, cold tea and painkillers in the office.
But then Corona came. And with the virus also the realization that germs are not an inevitable fate, even in the winter months. They are easy to avoid – provided everyone shows a little consideration for the other. And when your throat hurts and the fever rises, you stay where every sick and infectious person is best cared for anyway: at home.
“Sick to the office, that won’t happen in the future,” a colleague said to me when we met in the hallway at some point between the first and second lockdowns. I agreed. We were both wrong.
Whether in the spinning studio, in the restaurant or at work: those who cough and sniffle are currently experiencing an amazing comeback. For me, proof that humans are basically creatures of habit – and that it is easier to fall back into the old routine than to maintain new habits.
In any case, I didn’t miss the coughing and sniffling – and will try to buck the trend. The first safety measures against a relapse have already been taken: When I recently got my hands on my small emergency pharmacy while cleaning up the office, I put it to its proper use – and disposed of it in the garbage. new purchase? Not provided.
