Day 2

I wanted to write this last night before going to bed, but I fell asleep in front of the TV, so I am writing Day 2's update on the morning of Day 3. Currently there are 299 cases with 3 deaths in Franconia. That is an infection rate of 14%. Mortality rate is at 1%. In Germany there are now 9360 cases with 24 deaths

The kids received their first round of school materials for Home Schooling. Home Schooling is not a common concept in Germany, in fact, it is illegal. But, as I often have said around here the past few days, we are in an exceptional situation which demands exceptional measures. Anyway, the 4th grader has been blanketed with a ton of work and the 9th and 7th graders have received relatively little. Not sure how that works.

My wife is also working hard to keep her students busy. One problem is there is ONE central platform that is being used throughout Bavaria to keep the students up to date with materials and assignments. On Monday the platform was shutdown temporarily due to a DDoS attack. Media outlets claimed it was a hacker, but I think it was just 20000 kids trying to log in to the platform at once.

HomeOffice for me seems to be working out well. Luckily Siemens is well equipped to send several people home. What they didnt take into account is that at home there are more distractions, like bored kids and dogs that need to be walked. We will make the best of it, afterall, these are exceptional times.

To that end, yesterday afternoon we took a walk with the kids and the dog down to the playground. When we got there, there was a sign posted on a tree that the playground has been closed due to the coronavirus. Germany is taking containment seriously and I am happy about that. We played a little baseball in a field next to the playground and then headed home. Fresh air and sunlight is so important.

Today, my wife and I will venture out to the local supermarket. Hopefully it wont come to fisticuffs, I will update on this later.

In other news, Tom Brady announced yesterday he was leaving the Patriots. As of this writing, it is reported that he will sign with the Bucs. Ugh.

We still have toilet paper.