"In the morning there were customers here who had already gone through the whole city but could no longer obtain respiratory masks," reported the owner of the Hofgarten Pharmacy on Kaiserplatz. The two Asians found what they were looking for in her store. But now that pharmacy’s stock has also been depleted. "But I have already made sure that more supplies are coming," she said. She had to spend a lot of time on this, because masks were hardly available via the normal pharmacy purchasing networks.

Mohammadi Davoud works in the Bahnhofsapotheke (Train Station Pharmacy) in the city center on Poststrasse and also knows: "Respiratory masks have been sold out almost everywhere for three weeks." The worldwide supply shortages are also due to the fact that a large proportion of respiratory masks are produced in China. According to the German Apothekerzeitung (Pharmacy News), China has now issued an export ban on respirators. The Bad Godesberg pharmacist Helmut Nolden (62) has had a different experience in the pharmacy on Römerplatz. He said that there was a slightly increased demand for respirators, which was accompanied by supply shortfalls.

However, there was no increased demand for masks in his pharmacy. Many general practitioners were busy on Tuesday. Family doctor Michael Naubereit from Weststadt knows that this is not unusual after carnival. Especially during carnival, infectious illness spreads "explosively". He is already being asked about the coronavirus by his patients from time to time. "In any case, I am highly sensitized and watch out for any signs that could indicate a possible infection with the virus." The fact that young doctors have also fallen victim to the virus is very worrying for him. So far, however, there have been no signs of it in his practice. But: "The virus will end up here." The physician is glad that years ago he introduced a ritual of only waving to each other as a greeting instead of shaking hands. "Everyone has gotten used to that by now.”

Naubereit's colleague Johannes Just from Beuel now also sees an increased risk of a pandemic in Germany. "The risk has clearly increased," he noted. "We follow the instructions of the Robert Koch Institute and are always prepared for potentially infectious patients," explained the general practitioner. As a matter of routine, all patients with respiratory diseases in his group practice were now asked whether they had recently spent time in Italy or China or had been in contact with travel returnees from those countries.

(Orig. text: Lisa Inhoffen, Dylan Cem Akalin, Translation: ck)