Covid happens/新冠经历

After three years of Covid spreading around the world and thus not being back in Germany, I finally had a trip back home again this Autumn and also took the chance to join some global / APAC meetings. The first thing I realized after arriving at the transfer airport in Helsinki was that no one including all airport staff was wearing masks. The people from my flight looked like aliens from another world. However, people in Germany are not as careless as some in China may believe and have arranged to live with Covid. In public transportation in Germany, 90%+ wear masks and daily Covid self-tests were mandatory for attending the planning meeting in Neuhausen. So, I came safe through the first two weeks despite meeting all kinds of people.

过去三年，新冠病毒在世界各地肆虐，因此我没有回去德国，今年秋天我终于有了一次回家的机会，也借此机会参加了一些全球/亚太地区的会议。到达赫尔辛基转机机场后，我最先注意到的是，没有一个人戴口罩（包括所有机场工作人员）。和我同一航班上的人看起来像来自另一个世界的外星人。然而，德国人并不像部分中国人认为的那样（对防疫）粗心大意或者已经准备好与新冠共存。在德国的公共交通上，90%以上的人都戴着口罩，每天参加诺伊豪森规划会议的人必须要自测Covid。因此，尽管我见了很多人，我还是安全地度过了头两个星期。

As most of the colleagues sharing their experiences in this blog session, I got Covid during the APAC Meeting in Pattaya, Thailand. The first day after the meeting was over, my whole body started aching and I felt extremely tired – I first thought it was due to the tiring last few days. Originally, I planned to meet up with friends for the two additional days I stayed in Thailand but in the end, I did not have the energy to leave Pattaya and just booked another hotel there. Once arrived, I directly fell asleep, I put my alarm for 6pm in the evening, woke up by then and felt very hot but could not get out of the bed so that I just slept through for over 20 hours. Noon next day, I had to check out as my flight was in the evening. So, I checked out, had some food, and roamed around the neighborhood getting some paracetamol and a massage – I was not aware I got Covid at that time although I had a slight presentiment. I felt like not being in my body – probably mostly induced by the heavy headache.

和大多数在这个博客上分享经验的同事一样，我在泰国芭提雅举行的亚太会议期间感染的新冠。会议结束后的第一天，我开始全身疼痛，非常疲惫--我最初以为是由于过去几天的劳累所致。原本我计划在泰国多呆两天与朋友见面，但最后，我没有力气离开芭提雅，就在那里又订了一家酒店。一到酒店，我就直接睡着了，我把闹钟调到了晚上6点，6点时醒来，我感觉很热，但又下不了床。我就这样睡了20多个小时。第二天中午，我不得不退房，因为我的航班是当天晚上的。于是，我退了房，吃了点东西，在附近转了转，吃了点对乙酰氨基酚（退烧药），做了个按摩--虽然当时我有一点预感，但我并不确定自己得了新冠。我感觉自己整个人非常不在状态--可能主要是由严重的头痛引起的。

The 20 hours flight to Germany also somehow got over, mostly sleeping as still feeling very tired. My throat started soaring while I slowly felt coming back to earth. As the symptoms all fit to Covid, I did a self-test on the train from airport to home to be able to warn my parents – result positive. I told my mum via Whatsapp and when my dad picked me up from the train station, he was well prepared as they did not get Covid yet and wanted to keep it that way: Wearing FFP2 mask, medical gloves, having disinfection liquid. First thing he did was handing me medical gloves, changed my standard medical mask to FFP2 and sprayed me and my bag thoroughly. Then, he brought me back home – on the back seat of course. For the next few days, I did my best to not infect my family members, eating by myself, using different towels to clean hands, wearing gloves and mask when being in common places or touching commonly used things – and surprise: It worked. No one got infected by me despite living under the same roof. I slowly felt having more energy while the coughing got worse but never as bad as during my “standard” throat hurt I get roughly twice per year. I also did not experience loss of taste as reported by some others. So, I also continued with home office and did not take sick leave. Ca. one week later, the self-test results got weaker and weaker (the second bar’s color got weaker) and my mum got sick of all these protections so that we dropped it. Apparently, I did not have enough virus specimen to infect them anymore although test results still show positive. The coughing continued for some days but finally also diminished. During the October holidays, I felt as active and healthy as before having Covid.

在飞往德国的20个小时中，我主要在睡觉，因为我仍然感觉很疲惫，时间也这么不知不觉地过去了。飞机降落的过程中，我发现我的喉咙开始疼痛。由于这些症状都符合感染新冠的症状，我在从机场到家的火车上做了Covid自测，方便提前警示我的父母--结果是阳性。我用Whatsapp发消息给我妈告知了这一情况，所以当我爸爸从火车站来接我时，他已经做好了准备，因为他们还没有感染过新冠，并希望之后都不要感染上。我爸戴着FFP2口罩，戴着医用手套，带着消毒液。他做的第一件事是给我戴上医用手套，把我的标准医用口罩换成FFP2，并对我和我的包进行了彻底的消毒喷洒。然后，他把我带回了家--当然我坐在后座。在接下来的几天里，我尽最大努力避免感染我的家人，自己吃饭，用不同的毛巾清洁双手，在公共场所或接触常用物品时戴上手套和口罩--令人惊讶的是：这很有效。尽管生活在同一屋檐下，却没有人被我感染。我感受到我的精力在慢慢恢复，但咳嗽却越来越严重，但好在这没有像我每年大约两次的 "标准 "喉痛那样严重。我也没有像其他一些人报告的那样经历味觉丧失。因此，我也继续在家里办公，没有请病假。大约一周后，新冠自测结果看上去越来越弱（第二条的颜色越来越弱），我妈妈对所有这些保护措施感到厌烦，所以我们放弃了。显然，我没有足够的病毒标本去感染他们了，尽管测试结果仍然显示为阳性。咳嗽持续了一阵子，但最后也减弱了。在10月的假期里，我觉得自己和感染新冠之前一样活跃和健康。

On medication during the time I was recovering in Germany: I did always drink hot water and took some pills to relax my throat. 3 weeks later, I took a PCR test in order to fly back to China which then showed negative.

在德国康复期间，我一直在服药。我确实一直在喝热水，并吃了一些药丸来放松我的喉咙。3周后，为了飞回中国，我做了一次PCR测试，结果显示为阴性。