The Don't Go Anywhere Strategy

 This came out today via Focus, and it's one of those things left for you to ponder upon.

The Merkel team is continually trying to work up a new strategy to limit Covid-19 and to get the 16 Premier-Presidents into an agreement.  

So the newest concept?

It revolves around two ideas:

1.  When and if people travel by train or bus.....you eliminate/reduce the seating to 25-percent of the seats onboard.

A 50-passenger bus?  Well....it'd basically be carrying 15 to 18 passengers.  The bus driver would count up the entry-people and then forbid anyone else from getting on.  

A 250-passenger railway car going from Hamburg to Frankfurt?  Well....you'd have a max of seventy-odd seats.  

Leaving a bunch of people at bus stops for the next bus (or four buses down the line)?  Yes.  If you wanted a reason not to ride the train or bus....this would do it.

2.  The second idea is to tell everyone that your 'limit' or 'circle' is five kilometers (3.1 miles) of your house/apartment.

This means if you were intending to meet a friend, and you were on a journey of nine kilometers to reach their home....if the cops stop you and ask where you are going and for your ID....you got a fine coming.

The idea that you might live way out in the Hunsruck (the boonies of Germany), in a village of twelve houses, and the nearest pharmacy is sixteen kilometers away....the cops can stop you and give you the ninth-degree of lecture on the 5-km range.

Presently, Saxony is the only state in Germany that has a mileage limit (15 km of your house/apartment is the limit).  

Based on the social media chatter....I'd say that they will eventually reach some compromise on this mileage deal (maybe 15 to 25 km).  

Will Germans appreciate either the limited bus/train seats or the mileage limit?  NO.  I'd suggest that more than one-in-three will laugh over both suggestions and just tell journalists it's a joke.

You can sit and imagine a German police patrol (Helga and Martin)....halting some gal on the west-side of Berlin....asking for the ID, where her journey started, and she doesn't want to really discuss where she started or where the final destination is located.  A simple two-minute chat turns into an interrogation lasting thirty minutes, and a fairly intense lecture how the Chancellor said x-number of kilometers is the limit.

This is the problem when you gather up some intellectuals and PhD-types....suggesting a problem, and some solution comes out which aren't that practical or agreeable to normal people.  

The added 'weight' or burden here.....you end with journalists from public TV who want to explain this strategy to the general public, and it comes out like some idea that a nine-year-old kid would have.  You just sit there and shake your head over where reality has taken you.  

UPDATE: It'll be announced by tomorrow.....to start by this coming weekend, a limit of 15 km from your home is the new limit....IF you live within a hot-zone.  I think presently....around two-thirds of all districts/counties fall into this category.  Length?  They suggest till the last day of January (might continue into mid-Feb, if you ask me).