German journalist that was quarantined in Coronavirus ward in the hospital | Kolja Zydatiss

Vance Crowe [00:00:01] As the crow flies on the Vance Crow podcast, Koya Adas, welcome to the podcast.

Guest [00:00:09] Hi.

Vance Crowe [00:00:10] So the last time you and I saw each other, it was about 3:00 AM in a bar in East Berlin where we were talking all things about politics and European political movements and all sorts of crazy things. And we've stayed in touch but never gotten on the phone and spoken with one another until a global pandemic. So you are living in Germany right now as the global pandemic of Coronavirus is going on. How are things in Germany right now?

Guest [00:00:38] Right, so I'm still in Berlin. I'm still

Vance Crowe [00:00:41] A journalist.

Guest [00:00:44] Things are quite quiet in Berlin. So we've, it depends on the state actually. So some German states have been more strict. They've had a kind of lockdown policy. Berlin is a bit more liberal, so there's limits or you can go out with your household, so with the people you live with. So that would, could be parents with kids or as a couple, or as people sharing an apartment, something like that. Or in groups of two. But nothing bigger than that. So as big as your household gets or groups of two people. So people are using the time to do all kinds of things. So I played some table tennis with my mom today and you can see people going for a run or, or working out in a park or, but always in, in very small groups. So there's no big, nothing big going on. The, the streets are pretty deserted, much less traffic. It's really, really quiet.

Vance Crowe [00:01:44] So I so you, you have been in a unique position there because you're not just hanging out with your family under quarantine. You just got out of the hospital while in, in Germany, right?

Guest [00:01:54] That's right. I spent some days, I got out of hospital a few days ago. I was actually in a Corona ward until my test results came through, which said that I was Corona negative, but I admitted myself to hospital for the first time in my life. I've never been to hospital because a few days ago I, I started having some strong pain in the right side of my body and I called an ambulance at about 2:00 AM 3:00 AM and they did a CT scan in hospital and found out that I had a, a pulmonary embolism, so a blood clots in, in both lungs and pneumonia in my right lung. So first time in my life I was, I went to hospital, I took an ambulance. It was pretty deserted, so they'd canceled all unnecessary surgery, those kind of things. They, they, they were in the process of clearing the hospital. So they'd, they'd set up one Corona ward and they were in the process of setting up two other Corona wards. So big parts of the hospital dedicated to being prepared for Corona, basically. And what happened to me, it was clear after about two hours that I, I'd had an, a pulmonary embolism, so I would need medication against blood clot, blood thinning medication.

Guest [00:03:29] And I needed a painkiller and antibiotics and they'd done a Corona test just to see if that could be the origin of these problems. It turned out after seven days it wasn't. So the results took seven days to get in and then they released me 'cause I was getting better anyway 'cause the antibiotics were working and I was feeling, okay, so I got to go home after seven days.

Vance Crowe [00:03:53] What was going on in your head when you're sitting at home and you're deciding, do I really wanna call the ambulance? I mean, for me, I've done everything I can to position myself so that me and my family don't have to go to the emergency room up until a, a small gunshot wound. I think we get handle here 'cause I don't wanna go to the

Guest [00:04:13] Hospital. Understand that it, it took me quite a while to decide. So I was trying to see how strong the pain is. I'd had no idea where, where it was coming from as well. I had no idea what was wrong with me. It was just clear to me that something was very wrong with me. And it, it took me maybe two hours or so to decide to, to call 'cause I'd been, I'd be bad all, all afternoon and it wasn't getting better. So I thought just a better call now. And then when I arrived at the hospital, it was actually really, really quiet. So I got to see a doctor very quickly. It took about an hour to see a doctor and about two hours to get the CT scan done. And by then I knew what was wrong with me then. So it was a very quiet night at the hospital. Like I said, they were, they were just starting to prepare the hospital for the supposed onslaught of, of Corona patients. And they put me in one of the, in the first Corona ward, which they prepared. And in the course of the week they, they set up two other similar wards.

Vance Crowe [00:05:18] I imagine myself being in that situation and thinking how terrifying it would be to say, well what if I don't have coronavirus? And now I've just surrounded myself with all these people that have coronavirus. Were those thoughts going through your head?

Guest [00:05:31] I, I was told that they were, there were two definite patients with Corona on my ward and the rest were apparently people waiting for their test results to come in. So just the possibility of Corona. But I was in my room all on my own, so I didn't interact with the patients very much. We all had single rooms and the medical staff was, was very careful. So they all had masks and they all had to throw away their clothing every time they interacted with me, which was quite interesting. So they, they just dumped their protective sort of vest, which they pull over. They, they take it off immediately and throw it away once they leave the room, which is pretty interesting. So I, I felt very safe 'cause I didn't really interact with anybody except for the medical stuff regularly.

Vance Crowe [00:06:23] So you're in a unique position and you have a very unique background. We could be having a podcast even if there wasn't coronavirus going on because you've been a journalist, at least when we were speaking, you were on the side of liberty and trying to say, Hey, we wanna have very low government intervention and these things stop the free market. So how has Coronavirus been handled by the German government? How have things progressed? What are your thoughts on how all this is working?

Guest [00:06:51] Well, Germany is a very federally organized country. So everything is up to the state governments. So it's sort of a hodgepodge of different approaches. So it can be quite strict. There are states in Germany which are in a kind of state of complete lockdown and there's others like Berlin which are a bit more liberal. So in generally, I think Germany has been a country which has been taking it quite seriously. There's been reports that maybe things have been going too far. So a woman has been stopped for, for paddling, a kayak on her own, on a body of water, just completely on her own. Or there's been reports of people being stopped who've been going for a walk on their own, those kind of things. I haven't heard of that in Berlin, but there have been reports from other states. So maybe the police might in some cases be overreacting. So as you said, I usually tend towards liberty. I think there's been a lot of, I have a libertarian position generally. I think there's been a lot of overreach in what the state has been doing in a lot of western countries. I think we've had problems with liberty, we've had problems with drawing a line and, and limiting what the state does. So I've had a lot of time now to think about this also in hospital. 'cause I think we should take it seriously. I think Germany has a, a really good chance of the healthcare system not collapsing under Corona.

Guest [00:08:29] I think the way we're handling it at the moment, the way we've prepared more intensive care units and so on, I think we're quite well equipped and if people do do the social distancing and so on. So I think I've had, I've been a bit on the fence on this 'cause I do recognize that we need to limit what the state does. I've heard reports of things which I find worrying like someone being stopped for, for kayaking on their own and so on. But then I, I don't have a problem with say closing schools or closing churches. You can, you can do a lot by video. You can transmit things like lessons and, and so there is a lot you can do if you do shut down public life. So I kind of understand why we would do it and I think we have a good chance of getting through this as a country really well. 'cause we did take the right measures I think. But it worries me, some of the reports I've been hearing, people being stopped from sitting on a bench or those kind of things from going on a walk, then it goes too far. I dunno.

Vance Crowe [00:09:37] Yeah, it's been a very interesting time for me from a like moral philosophical standpoint because when we first went into lockdown, I am, I was really reluctant. I understand why we need to do it and then it just keeps going step after step further. And I recognize that we wanna stop this virus and for every situation where you allow people to congregate, you increase the odds of people in the medical physi field to to contract it because they don't have enough protective equipment. But then at the same time, it really only took about three weeks of real deep fear for people to give up the right to assemble and the right to gather and and be able to speak. And, and I've heard many people say things like, well if you can meet via online, that's good enough, that's sufficient. That that means you're not stopping people from assembling in worship. And I don't know the answer to this. I know that I am really uncomfortable with shutting down those permissions and I think most likely they'll come back when all this is over. But it, when the government tries to grab that much power, it's because it's easier to control people when you have authority to do it. Exactly.

Guest [00:10:47] Yeah. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:10:48] And it, it's been a tenuous thing. So I'm very curious about in a, in the German context, particularly around my understanding that other times in German history, for example, the, the rise of Hitler, that was around different pandemics. People were worried about disease at that time too true.

Guest [00:11:06] Yeah. Yeah. And

Vance Crowe [00:11:07] They were willing to give over to an authoritarian to help clean up the disease is my reading of history. Correct. Right.

Guest [00:11:12] And the, the, the rice tuck fire, which was of course then constructed as a state of emergency, right? So most of Hitler's powers did not come when he was elected. But after the fire in the rice tuck building, so the parliament building, which was then constructed as a national emergency, basically,

Vance Crowe [00:11:32] I don't know anything about this. Tell me more of this story.

Guest [00:11:34] The Nazi party came to power and then vastly increased its powers after the fire at the Rice Tuck building, which was the, the parliament building in Berlin. So a few months later after Hitler got elected, there was this, this fire, and that was basically the moment where Germany transformed into a dictatorship based on emergency powers which were given to Hitler as a reaction to this burning down of the parliament building

Vance Crowe [00:12:07] This, it's fascinating to me because it's, I, I see the passion and the desire for other that, that people give. So when I put out a podcast that was with a person that was suggesting we should not shut down the economy, people should have complete free movement. I got more hate for that than anything else I've done. And I've done some controversial things in the past, but never anything like this. And then just yesterday I was watching the national news and a member of our board of federal, of the Federal Reserve, a guy named Bullard, said, well I think that one of the ways that we're gonna get the economy started is we're gonna have an antibodies test. And if you, if you come off as you have had coronavirus, but you're no longer symptomatic, then you can just wear a badge that says you go back to work. Right? Yeah. And you're like, well, on one hand that's a really sensible idea. You know, we need to know who can get it and who can, who hasn't gotten it yet. And but on the other hand, you're talking about legislating people wearing badges. That's seems to me the potential for real bad news.

Guest [00:13:10] Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I've, I've been on the fence, I've read reports of, of crazy stuff happening in Germany in the uk like I said, just complete overreactions. Like some mayor closed down two hiking trails in the for or two forest trails because the trails cross. So people might meet on a, on in the forest where to it's complete overreactions of stopping someone, like I said, who is in her kayak paddling on a stopping people spending time outside. So we've heard reports, we've heard reports being people being stopped from sunbathing in the uk, those kind of things. So there have been overreactions, but I'm a bit on the fence 'cause I do see the point of taking measures which could, like I say, closing schools, closing places of worship, closing sports venues, nightclubs. I kind of get the point of that. So, and I think if we do that, we have a chance of getting through this pretty well. I, I, Germany and probably other developed countries have a, if they do the right thing, so I, I'm still a bit on the fan and I see the prob also the political pro problems for freedom of assembly, those kind of things. If you stop people from being able to do a, a political demonstration, those that, that worries me of course that we have a, the state of emergency, we expand the powers of the state.

Vance Crowe [00:14:40] Well, and there was a weird thing going on on Twitter there, there was a guy named Eric Weinstein that said he started posting the new Twitter terms of service where Twitter has said, if you are putting out information that runs contrary to the World Health Organization and to Right. That's scary. Yeah. You know, these other, other official positions, then we are going to take your content down and we may ban you from the platform. And you think about, well two weeks ago those places were saying don't wear masks, they don't really help you. Right. And so we need to have contrarian positions. Exactly, exactly. It's deeply important, particularly as there's, as there's counterbalance news like you, you gotta have that changing the subject. What is Germany's economy like and what do you think happens when the most of the able-bodied workers are told they have to stay in their homes?

Guest [00:15:31] Well I think the main thing is small businesses who, which suffer. So it's gonna be cafes, barber shops, those kind of places. Florists, just small businesses are gonna be hit and lots of them are gonna die.

Vance Crowe [00:15:49] Is Germany having the same kind of stimulus packages where they're sending money

Guest [00:15:54] To individuals? Right. They're discussing that. I'm not quite sure what the current status of what is being discussed or being shaped right now, what the response is gonna be. So it's gonna be some kind of stimulus package. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:08] And as you look at what has happened with Spain and Italy, they, these are EU countries that, do you think that they felt like the overall larger EU supported them or, I I mean I'm, and that's kind of a leading question because the only thing I've seen is people burning EU flags. But it might just be that my, my particular sw bent on Twitter is leans more towards those types of people.

Guest [00:16:34] Right. I think the crisis has shown how much we still do on a national level. So it's kind of bit demystified the eu 'cause there's always the idea that our problems are now global, so we need these global institutions to, to deal with them. But I think that's been kind of demystified a bit. I think we're seeing that a lot of the responses are, are national and a lot of stuff still happens on a national level, policy level.

Vance Crowe [00:17:03] Yeah. For me, I think this really drives home a philosophy that I've had that not only is the federalist system a good one, where you have the states as opposed to one large na large nation, but really it comes down to how is your city handling it? How are your mayors, how are your local hospital administrators? Yeah.

Guest [00:17:21] Because

Vance Crowe [00:17:22] That is going to determine live or die. I mean, you can have this swing in effect of the federal government to be able to say, we're gonna give you money or access to these sorts of resources. But at the end of the day, all the policing is done on the local level. All of the lockdowns are are done on the lock on the local level. And even if you put in a national stay at home order, you're still gonna have to have local people there to enforce it. So to me this is a major win for everybody that's now thinking about cities and how important it is to focus on your more local government,

Guest [00:17:55] Right? Yeah, it is. The response depends a lot on the local level. So in, in Berlin they're sort of functioning the trade fair area, so they're where they usually do the trade fairs. They're, they're building a, a new hospital that a temporary corona hospital. So it, it depends on decisions of mayors, those kind of things. Yeah. Very local. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:18:20] So what do you think is going to change in Germany now that once we enter this post Corona world, what, what do you think is gonna be things that will not be the same as they were before you started?

Guest [00:18:35] Well I I, I think a lot of small businesses are gonna be dead and we'll see how it works out for a larger businesses have a better chance of a lot, a lot of, a lot more people dependent on welfare, like a higher unemployment, definitely. And we'll see how it goes with civil liberties. So we'll see how much of these emergency measures become permanent. So that, that's kind of something we should worry about.

Vance Crowe [00:19:02] And are you still writing or are you still, are you still on the beat? What are you writing about? What are the stories that are gonna be the, the ones that you're itching to write down?

Guest [00:19:11] I, I haven't really written about Corona at the moment. Like I, I think it's interesting the point you made about the super nationalism. So how much of this is even resolvable on a national level or even at a national level. So I think that that's really interesting. That's something I could imagine writing about. 'cause it kind of demystifies this globalist myth that we need these global responses to problems. I think that's kind of being put into perspective by this crisis. So that's something I could imagine writing about

Vance Crowe [00:19:46] Over, over the weekend. I spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, the, the, the things that made certain cities super attractive, right? Like New York is high density. Yeah you can have public transportation so you don't have to have a car. You can do all these things. But those things that made that city really valuable are also the things that make it really vulnerable. And I was wondering aloud on Twitter, what are the qualities that might be attractive for cities in the future? Because I can imagine there are a lot of people that are gonna be stuck in a 400 square foot apartment in New York City wondering what is it like in the middle of the country? Is are are right?

Guest [00:20:23] Yeah, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:20:23] Smaller cities somewhere else better.

Guest [00:20:26] So it demystifies the hype around cities, sort of trendy cities a bit as well. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:20:32] I think it has the potential. I think, yeah. I also think, and this would be interesting to think what the Germans think of this. The, in the US one of the major political discussions going on right now is why do we have so much of our goods produced abroad? And you, and when you think about it, it it's in the shareholder's interest almost always, if you can find a cheaper labor pool, but it's not necessarily in the stakeholder's interest, right? Yeah. To have everything produced abroad. So I think this may generate a different kind of conversation. And to your point, a SRA kind of nationalism where, where people are saying we wanna make sure that masks and IV needles and all these things are produced in the US even though it may cost us dramatically more, is that going on in Germany?

Guest [00:21:17] Yeah. And I think we'll see those kind of debates in, in lots of countries. So Germany has also restricted the exports of certain articles. Right. So I think we'll be seeing those debates in a lot of countries and I think we'll have economic globalization is gonna be rolled back a little bit. I think we're gonna have Yeah. More autonomy or, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:21:42] And when you think of like right now in the grocery stores on April 6th, 2020, how are they doing? Are people queuing in lines? Is there, are there shortages of anything? How does it look in Germany

Guest [00:21:54] Shortages of, of toilet paper. That's the one thing we have everything else you can buy.

Vance Crowe [00:22:00] Interesting. Everything else

Guest [00:22:01] Is fine. The shops are pretty normal. The cashiers are protected by, they've mounted temporary, what do you call 'em? Like visors or like walls, plexiglass sort of see-through plastic walls around they, they cashiers. But apart from that, things look pretty normal. You can buy almost everything.

Vance Crowe [00:22:27] How do you think this whole thing passes? Does everyone have to go through a coronavirus baptism or do we find a vaccine? What's your estimation of how we get back to normal life?

Guest [00:22:37] I think we are currently almost on the, on route to getting back to a normal life. So I think I, I've read today also that the infections are falling again in France, in Italy, in Spain, in Germany, we never really had this big of an outbreak. So it's been quite quiet. Infections haven't been that high anyway. So I think the social distancing as it's implemented now is, is actually working. And I think we're sort of nearing the end of the tunnel. Maybe by the end of next month, I think things will start getting back to normal. We'll see restrictions being lifted

Vance Crowe [00:23:16] By the end of April or by the end of May.

Guest [00:23:19] May end of May, I think.

Vance Crowe [00:23:20] Wow. Okay. I

Guest [00:23:21] Think what we're, what we're doing is working, I think the economy's gonna suffer. People will suffer, people will have lost their jobs, they'll have lost their savings and so on. But I think in terms of life going back to normal, I expect that by, by the end of next month, 'cause we've social distanced enough to sort of put the brakes on, on the rise of infections.

Vance Crowe [00:23:44] Cool. Yeah, it is shocking to me that my German libertarian friend is the most optimistic of anybody that I've spoken to around the world. So that's great. It, it makes me feel happy and hopeful that, that that's what you're seeing east of us. So my final question, and that you've kind of already referenced this, but what is the world look like in two weeks?

Guest [00:24:05] In two weeks, in two weeks it's not gonna look much different from now. So people will get more and more bored. They're gonna get more agitated, worried, of course worried about their jobs. As I think in two weeks and not, not much will have changed. I think things might even get more stricter with restrictions on what we can do, how we can behave. I think in two months, like I said, things will start looking more normal and we'll start clearing up the mess, which this interruption has caused the interruption of the economy. So it's gonna have long-term effects for months, years, probably, I think two, two weeks from now, nothing much will have changed. So people will still be doing their social distancing. We'll have quite draconian measures in some parts of the world. Maybe overreactions of the authorities, but yeah, that's, that's what I expect.

Vance Crowe [00:25:08] Well, coia this has been very interesting and it's enlightening to hear what's going on in Germany. If people wanted to read your writings or follow you on Twitter, I've followed you for years. I, I read a lot of what you put out whenever I, I catch it. So how can people get ahold of you or see what you're doing?

Guest [00:25:26] I'm on Twitter with onward underscore always. So

Vance Crowe [00:25:31] Onward underscore always got it.

Guest [00:25:33] Right. Right. So, and that's where I, I post most of the stuff. I write all of it. Most of it's in German, but, and I post other things, which, which might be interesting, just interesting links. So if people wanna follow me, probably Twitter is, is best for that.

Vance Crowe [00:25:51] Well, I'm so glad to hear that you made it out of the hospital with your aneurysm and I, I wish you embolism. Embolism not in aneurysm. Yeah.

Guest [00:26:00] Blood, blood clot.

Vance Crowe [00:26:00] That's right. Well, thank you so much for, for taking the time to do this, coia. I really appreciate you making this work.

Guest [00:26:07] Yeah, my pleasure. Great fun. And I look forward to listening to the other podcasts you've done about Corona. Great.

Vance Crowe [00:26:14] We'll talk later.