Future à la Corona

Who would have thought that in spring 2021 we would still be here. Still here in times of coronavirus. Times in which we must adapt and reconsider our behaviour. With masks on our faces, distance from other people, no more handshakes and thoughts of a virus in our heads, we enter our everyday life, which no longer seems so everyday. But how much longer will this go on? Are we already living in the future or will the old normality really return?

When one thought back to the beginning of the new decade in winter 2019, nobody really expected a whole planet to be paralysed. People were optimistic and confident about the coming year with the identical tens digits. But now it is already 2021 and we are still living in lockdowns and there is no sign of the old normality. Yet that is exactly what we miss.

As a student, it was taken for granted to sit in lecture halls with up to 500 people or more, to stand in long queues in the canteen, to have to search for a free seat in the library or to squeeze into overcrowded buses. None of this has existed for more than two semesters now. Wherever one was at university, there were many people.

And it is precisely these people that make up university life. A university life that lives from exchange and encounters. Whether you discuss the topics for the upcoming exam with fellow students, eat with friends in the canteen or get to know new people in seminars, all these seemingly self-evident things are no longer as given as they were before the online semesters. Of course, exchange is not impossible, but you feel more on your own. After all, you study alone from home.

When you think about the upcoming summer semester, you wonder what the summer will be like. Perhaps everything will ease up and soon you will be able to have a glass of wine again on the Alte Mainbrücke. However, the lack of carefree spirit is still clearly noticeable in the smallest things. On Spotify there are party playlists to which new music is regularly added, but there are no clubs or house parties you can go to in order to dance to this party music. When you watch films or series on Netflix, you notice when people hug or stand close together. You have to think about how many people you are allowed to meet with and where when making arrangements. Before coronavirus, you would simply sit down with a friend in a café or go to the cinema. Exciting concert evenings or festivals have also become unthinkable.

You are confronted with reality in everyday life. Again and again, habits that we have always had are changed or forbidden by measures and constantly changing regulations. Now we have been in this new normality for longer and we are all trying to make the best of it. Somehow it has to go on. Not always do you feel like adhering to all the restrictions and you don't always do so, because after all we all have the same basic need – the need for closeness and social contact. Ultimately, it is being together that keeps us from going mad and that we need to live. Humans need other people and social contact, especially when you are sitting in front of your laptop all day in your shared flat room.

Sometimes you also forget that coronavirus exists. If you don't read any news for a few days or leave the house only a few times a week, you can easily forget your mask at home or in the car. But that doesn't change the fact that all of this is not the new normality that we want. Nobody wants to live in lockdowns or strict measures all the time. The yo-yo effect of lockdown to openings is also not sustainable in the long term. Nobody can really answer us what the near future will look like. But one thing is certain: we are living in the future. Perhaps the measures are only temporary and we will hopefully soon be able to live as "coronavirus-free" as possible again. But coronavirus will probably accompany us for much longer and we will have to learn to live with the virus in the future.

Vera Danzeisen