The Corona Virus is spreading among us, and so is the respiratory illness associated with it. Our only way out of this crisis is to not go out, and do that as much as possible. Please stay inside whenever you can; if you must go out, keep your distance to others. Don't make the mistake so many of us did and underestimate the danger. One rat will not bite you to death, but a hundred can.

Here are a few links that will hopefully be helpful for you. This page will be updated, so feel free to check back in once in a while.

Update 25.03.2020:

Protecting the vulnerable in our society also means protecting refugees. Many of them have lost everything already and are now waiting in overcrowded camps with next to no hygiene possible. You can sign this petition to leave no one behind - we now all know what is possible if politicians really want something to happen.

Helping:

In case you feel like just sitting at home is not enough, there are additional ways to help us all in this time of crisis. If you are healthy and more than 18 years of age, you could go donate blood. That red stuff is rather important (not only if you're a vampire), and it has a limited shelf life. Blood preserves will become scarce very quickly, but demand will not go down. You should be able to find out more about blood donation and blood drives via the Red Cross in your country; here's a list of the national organisations, courtesy of Wikipedia. You can also help those in the high-risk group by doing their shopping or other necessary errands for them; there's a bunch of communal help portals popping up, which you can try to find for your region, or drop a letter into the letterbox of people in your neighbourhood, or hang up an offer to help in your building if you live in an apartment. (Speaking of shopping: We now all know, from where the shelves are empty, that Germans eat almost exclusively pasta in case of emergency and being grounded; spend the rest of the time shitting (because nobody with normal loo habits can need that much toilet paper) and occasionally roll around in flour.)

Stay Informed:

If you want to keep up with the development of things, you can find (scary) graphs for most countries on the pages of John Hopkins University and Worldometer. Another excellent data source is the site by Avi Schiffmann, ncov2019, which culls data from the official sites of every country, and updates continually.

An indication of how quickly the virus spreads is the rate at which the number of cases doubles. You can find a statistic here (German website, scroll down for the country list).

Stay Sane:

For those of you who need a bit of distraction, or distraction for their children: German artist Katz & Tinte has several freebies to colour in on her homepage. Among them are a jumping-jack piggie and a few very cute monsters. 

You have probably heard the most commonly cited method to prevent contagion a gazillion times already: Wash your hands with soap and water, for at least 20 seconds. You've probably also heard that to time this, you could sind "Happy Birthday" twice. This recommendation amuses me no end, as using songs or  prayers for timing is something which was rather common in medieval times. Evidence for this is not very common in written sources, but does point to it being a much practised method; we find it both in cooking books as well as in othertexts where the duration of something has to be described.
If you would prefer something less monotonous than "Happy Birthday", and at the same time something much more medieval, I recommend the Nibelungenlied, a Middle High German epic. Singing one stanza takes approximately 30 seconds, so you have an ample safety margin even if you sing quickly... and with its 2379 stanzas, you won't get bored soon while scrubbing your fingers.
You can find the first "Aventiure" (which means "adventure", and in this case is usedto describe a chapter), sung by the great Eberhard Kummer, on Youtube. Eberhard Kummer also performed the entire book, unabridged; the recording is available via Chaucer Studios, either as download or as MP3-CD set. (They also have medieval English performances, if you prefer that to Middle High German). For singing yourself, you can find the full original text here on Google Books for free; there's a full English translation here (held in the original metre, so you can sing that too, if you want). And finally, here's a link to a digital facsimile of one of the manuscripts with the epic.  

For staying fit at home (or getting fit), there's also plenty of offers online. If you always planned to check out yoga, I recommend Do Yoga With Me, where you can find a lot of free videos; they are currently also offering their subscriber-only videos for free if you register and ask for free access (though it may take a while toprocess). Downdog is also offering their fitness apps for free until April 1.  

Some of the concerts that had to be canceled are now streamed instead over the Internet, or there's other streaming offers of cultural things. One of the great houses who are joining in with this is the Metropolitan Opera; they are streaming recordings of performances done in the last few years each evening. You could also take virtual tours through museums, not only in the great and well-known houses on this list:alotof smaller museums also have virtual tours on their website. Or you could leaf through a digital facsimile on a library homepage.  

Registration:

Your registration for a workshop or seminar is binding as soon as your written registration or registration through the shop system has arrived. The full fee for the workshop has to be paid at the latest four weeks before start of the workshop; if your registration comes in later than four weeks before the workshop, your full fee has to be paid immediately. If you do not pay the fee, you lose your claim to the reserved space. The workshop fee stated is for one person. 

Workshops take place if the minimum number of participants is reached. In case a workshop does not take place because of too few participants, all registered participants are informed three to two weeks before the workshop. In this case, you ae refunded the full amount paid for the workshop.

Cancellation:

The number of participants in each workshop is limited to guarantee a high quality of teaching. In case you have registered but need to cancel, cancellation fees apply according to the following: 

10 % of the workshop fee until 31 days before workshop start,
25 % of the workshop fee 30-23 days before workshop start,
50 % of the workshop fee 22-14 days before workshop start,
100% of the workshop fee 13-0 days before workshop start.

Liability:

You are taking part in the workshops and use the tools and materials provided at your own risk. Not following instructions in the course may result in danger to your health and safety.

These workshop terms and conditions apply in addition to the basic TOC of pallia.

In case your workshop takes place in Erlangen, please be advised that a cat is present in these premises.

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