American Covid-19 Story Continues

 Over the past two days, a lot of hype has been generated around Garmisch, the state of Bavaria, and Germany itself....over this US Army female who was a Covid-19 'spreader'.  The basic story here....she had symptoms...she went to a facility and was tested and told to take quarantine measures.  The idiot then went out and partied....infecting a minimum of twenty folks.  

So the news has taken over the topic, and there are three slants to this:

1.  Maximum consequence need to fall into place (2k Euro fine, jail-time, etc).  In this news slant....there is a belief that the US military will just 'let' her walk away with no punishment, and that there is no treaty to handle this....so things need to be worked out or arranged. 

The idea of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)?  The one that has been around for decades?  Non-existent.  Even politicians from Bavaria are talking around like there's no agreement on how to handle this, and everyone needs to start at start-up point and make something up out of thin air.

2. 'Spreaders' are generating a lot of hype and it's possible that even more rules and extreme consequences may come out of this.....where quarantine no longer means staying in your house....that you'd be picked up by the police and taken to some compound.  

A lot of chatter is existing over how this Army member just walked out of the clinic...never grasping the meaning of quarantine.

3.  Finally, some of this chatter is about an anti-American slant, and asking why the US remains in Germany.  It has nothing to do with Covid-19 and simply politicizes the topic even more.

What should really happen at this point?  The local prosecutor in Garmisch should just bundle up the forty-page facts package, and sit down with US Army officials to hand over the package, and let them go to the SOFA agreement....using the correct tools, and prosecute the female in the Army fashion (losing a stripe, paying a fine, doing some in the 'brig', or possibly being tossed out of the Army).  

The behavior of acting that SOFA doesn't exist?  This is an ongoing trait of the Merkel government (going on for twenty-odd years) that rules and procedures aren't written down, and you need to re-invent the process each single time. The SOFA exists to ensure standardized rules and processes.  Once you abandon it....then stability goes out the front-door. 

I don't have a problem in suggesting this action by the young lady was awful stupid and demonstrates a behavioral pattern.  She deserves a few consequences out of this whole episode.