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The following case is from my circle of acquaintances: a mother, son (22) and daughter (14) live together in one household. The son goes on holiday to Croatia - the clubs are open there and parties are held. PARTY, PARTY! They returned last Tuesday, and there is no regulation for a test or quarantine. He feels perfectly healthy. He works in a hospital, so when he returns he will be tested, standard and is - Covid-19 negative. Of course, this is only until the hospital remembers two days later that they have mixed things up: he is actually positive. The decision came this Monday. Now he has to stay home for 14 days. The mother also has the right to be tested. The result on Tuesday: she is also positive, and has been ordered a quarantine of 14 days.

It's Thursday. The official figures for our district have not changed for days. The positive tests don't seem to show up in the statistics, or we're still in the stone age here and it takes days to do so.

Now don’t forget, the daughter also lives in the household. I bet she'd test positive, too. What does the health department say? She doesn't need a test because the quarantine applies to the entire household anyway, so her test result wouldn't matter. Excuse me? Is this supposed to save money? Don't we want real numbers? The daughter was in Frankfurt this past weekend. PARTY, PARTY! Did she call her friends and warn them? No, it would be embarrassing. Anonymously she could do it on a Corona app, which is a great system. Does she have a Corona warning app? No. And if she does, she can only report »positive« if she can read the code from the test results. But she won't get it, because whether she's »positive« or not is up to our healthcare system - SO WHAT. So nobody is warned. By the way, the health department has confirmed to me by telephone that this is exactly how it's done.

Sloppiness is obviously the order of the day, by the way. A friend of mine wanted to get herself tested in Munich. After a two-hour wait at the test center, she left again, no more time. Two days later the call: she’s positive. But she wasn’t tested at all! Unbelievable.

I really wonder how this is going to continue. Of course, half the country's youth will be coming back from their holiday somewhere in the next few months. Many without symptoms, of course, but certainly some with the virus. Because the youth are going on holiday specifically to touch each other. They don't go on an everyone-keep-your-distance holiday, and often go specifically to the countries with the most relaxed lifestyle. Germany has endless testing capacities: a small smear test after arrival in Germany would not take but a minute, and hours later a result could ensure that one's environment is also tested or at least warned. But all this is not done. And I cannot blame the youth for wanting to party.

A lockdown at the expense of the economy is not a problem for the nation, but mandatory tests upon entry are apparently a problem, because the government would have to pay for them. So we are heading with full force toward a second wave. That's great for the politicians, who can then make their mark again.