When corona came to Germany

A country comes to a standstill – science stays awake

The »novel coronavirus« SARS-CoV-2 had reached Germany by January 2020. Initially, there were only a few cases attributable to a single source, but from the end of February onwards, the number of reports of new infections increased. On 28 February, the Robert Koch Institute still classified the risk for the population in Germany as »low to moderate«, but since 17 March as »high« and for high-risk groups since 26 March as »very high«. In Thuringia, the first corona cases occurred at the beginning of March, and in mid-March the first infections were also confirmed in Jena. Schools and daycare centres in Thuringia closed from 17 March. On 20 March, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena went into emergency operationExternal link.

Public life had largely come to a standstill. Students, researchers and university employees found themselves mostly working from home, full of questions in the face of the spreading pandemic. We took advantage of this special time to ask the scientists of our university about the corona crisis. The result is a series of interviews that provide answers to some of these questions from different disciplines and at the same time show snapshots of the corona development itself. The interviews are arranged in chronological order.