Information on dealing with the coronavirus 2019-nCoV

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (in German: BMBF) will again help students who are verifiably in acute emergency due to the corona pandemic with grants from November 2020 to March 2021. The grants are awarded by the Studentenwerke. The interim financial aid can only be requested online from November 20, 2020. A separate application must be made for each month.

Online application here: www.ueberbrueckungshilfe-studierende.de

What is new compared to the first edition of the interim financial aid?
There are several improvements for the students:

• If the pandemic-related termination of the previous employment relationship cannot be provided or cannot be documented in writing, a self-declaration is now sufficient, stating the reasons and circumstances of the termination.
• If the required two written rejections of at least two job applications cannot be provided, a self-declaration regarding unsuccessful applications and their rejection is sufficient.
• Only the account statements from the previous month and from the current month up to the day before the application must now be uploaded.
• Only the statements for accounts, which can be accessed at short notice, must now be uploaded.

All further information on interim financial aid can be found on the website of the Studentenwerk Niederbayern/Oberpfalz at https://www.stwno.de/de/beratung/geld-im-studium/ueberbrueckungshilfe.

New quarantine regulations for those entering Bavaria (Einreise-Quarantäne-Verordnung - EQV) came into effect on November 9, 2020. They mandate that anyone entering the Free State of Bavaria from abroad who has been in an at-risk area within the previous 10 days is obliged to make their way to their abode or other suitable accommodation directly and without delay. They are then to isolate themselves there continuously for a period of 10 days. During this period, they are not allowed to receive visitors who do not belong to their own household.

Those affected by the quarantine are obliged to contact the relevant local authorities and inform them of the situation without delay. Should symptoms develop which suggest a COVID-19 infection, the local authorities must be informed without delay.

Should the person concerned be tested for the corona virus SARS-CoV-2 and receive a negative result; and should that person also have not developed typical symptoms of infection with SARS-CoV-2, such as coughing, fever, sniffing or loss of smell or taste; then the quarantine can end sooner, however it cannot end before the fifth day after arriving in Bavaria.

Registering the arrival online at www.einreiseanmeldung.de is mandatory. The person concerned will receive an acknowledgment of this registration, which they must carry with them on arrival. In exceptional cases where it is not possible to register online, a stand-in notification on paper must be filled in and carried.

The Free State of Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern) has passed an ordinance on measures to protect against infection (8. Bayerische Infektionsschutzmaßnahmenverordnung), which comes into effect on November, 2, 2020.  This will be in force initially until November 30, 2020, and contains regulations with go further than the previous provisions.

Universities will continue their Teaching and Research. At Universität Regensburg, some specific teaching activities, examinations and practicals will take place in-person, with some constraints. Online teaching will supplement this. You can find information on this in the course catalog, LSF.

The university pizzeria, Unikat, and the cafeteria (Mensa) are now closed. The cafeteria, however, still offers meals for take away. The businesses on campus remain open, with constraints on hygiene, entrance controls, and measures to avoid queues. Please note that only one customer per 10 square meters of floor space is allowed into any shop at any one time.

Please observe the minimum distancing to other people or 1.5 m, and that wearing masks is compulsory in the university’s buildings.

It is urgently recommended that you adhere to common hygiene measures that also protect you from an influenza infection:

• Avoid shaking hands.
• Maintain good hand hygiene and wash your hands with sufficient soap and water.
• Adhere to coughing and sneezing etiquette (cough and sneeze in your elbow, not in your hand.)
• Use tissues only once and then dispose of them safely.
• Keep 1-2 meters distance to other people and especially avoid close contact with persons with respiratory infections.
• Wear a face mask covering the mouth and nose in university buildings, especially in areas where people meet or move about and cannot be sure of maintaining a minimum distance of 1.5 m from others.

Further information about common hygiene tips can be found here:
https://www.uni-regensburg.de/ur-international/coronavirus

Information for women who are pregnant or breast feeding

The Federal Office for Family and Civil Tasks (Bundesamt für Familie und zivilgesellschaftliche Aufgaben (BAFzA)) has released a PDF document containing general information on the effects of SARS-CoV-2 in pregnancy and while breast feeding, and with information on the laws protecting mothers: download the PDF from the BAFyA website (German version)

Testing obligation upon return to Germany

People from risk areas are obliged to take a Corona test when they enter Germany. Bavaria has been implementing mandatory tests for travelers returning from risk areas since August 8, 2020: At the airports in Munich, Nuremberg and Memmingen, all air travelers returning from a risk area have to undergo medical examination upon arrival unless they are able to present a corresponding medical certificate.

Also travelers from high-risk areas who enter by other means are obliged to present a medical certificate on request. This obligation can be checked both by the police upon arrival and by the locally responsible health authorities. Those arriving by car are supposed to be tested within 72 hours after entry to Germany. Test stations can be found at motorway A3: Service area "Donautal-Ost"; motorway A8: Service area "Hochfelln-Nord"; motorway A93: Service area "Inntal-Ost". Further test stations can be found at Munich central station and Nuremberg central station.

The medical certificate must be in German or English. It has to be based on a molecular biological test that was carried out no more than 48 hours before entering the Federal Republic of Germany in a member state of the European Union or another country listed by the Robert Koch Institute. Anyone who cannot submit a corresponding medical certificate is obliged to tolerate a medical examination, in particular a molecular biological test, including a smear test.

Further information:
https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/coronavirus-infos-reisende/faq-tests-entering-germany.html

Quarantine for those returning from travels

New quarantine regulations for people entering Bavaria (Einreisequarantäneverordnung - EQV) came into force on June 15, 2020. They mandate that anyone entering the Free State of Bavaria who has been in an at-risk area within the last 14 days is obliged to make their way to their abode or other suitable accommodation directly and without delay. They are then to isolate themselves there continuously for a period of 14 days. During this period, they are not allowed to receive visitors who do not belong to their own household.

Those affected by the quarantine are obliged to contact the relevant local authorities and inform them of the situation without delay. Should symptoms develop, which suggest a COVID-19 infection, the local authorities must be informed without delay.

* At-risk areas are states or regions outside Germany in which there is an elevated risk of infection with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 at the time of entry to Germany. The RKI publishes the classification of at-risk areas, and whether an area is at-risk is governed by the current publication at the time.

Note for employees of UR: senior staff are to be informed of the quarantine.

Regardless of the type of the pathogen, when you notice symptoms of an illness, you should avoid contact with other persons. People who are sick should stay at home until they are completely well and contact their doctor by telephone.

Employees do not help themselves or others by coming to work when they are sick.

Supervisors are called upon to intensively exercise their duty of care towards their employees who show symptoms of illness.

City of Regensburg opens a corona test center on Dultplatz

The corona test center opens on Thursday, September 3, 2020, on the eastern part of Dultplatz (where the shopping area of Dult takes place) and will be open on weekdays for the foreseeable future. The first two days, Thursday, September 3, and Friday, September 4, it will be open from 08:30 until 17:00. From Monday, September 7, 2020, on, it will be open every work day from 08:00 until 17:00. The approach road is signposted.

Citizens resident in the city who are not displaying symptoms of a possible covid-19 illness can be tested for free and without arranging a meeting in advance for whatever reason they want. The city wants to make it clear that wearing a face mask covering the mouth and nose is mandatory when entering the test area. Please note: registration is via a code and is only possible at the test center itself!

Generally, the results will be communicated to you within 48 hours. This notification is only possible by email.

As every administrative district has to set up a test center, the city of Regensburg asks that everyone is tested in their district of residence. This is the only way that Bavaria-wide testing can proceed in an orderly manner. Despite this, one must expect to have to wait - depending on how many are making use of the service. We ask for your patience!
In accordance with the Bavarian guidelines, a city of the size of Regensburg needs to provide a test capacity of about 300 to 500 persons per day.  The test center has a maximum capacity of 500 tests per day. Once this has been reached, the center will close and only open again on the next day at the usual time.

Further information and FAQs on the test center can be found at www.regensburg.de/aktuelles/coronavirus/corona-testzentrum-am-dultplatz

Support for people in difficult situations

All persons for whom the restrictions on going out connected with the corona crisis present a danger, or for whom great economic, social and/or health insecurity threatens, can find an overview of the help available (by telephone or electronically) in the following PDF: Help available in difficult situations (PDF, in German)

Further sources of information

• https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
• https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/novel-coronavirus-china
• https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/en/press/2020/coronavirus.html
• https://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage_node.html
• Coronavirus telephone hotline: 09131/6808-5101

The Bavarian State Ministry for Health and Social Care (Bayerisches Staatministerium für Gesundheit und Pflege) published a general decree Isolation on November 6, 2020. It contains regulations on quarantine and isolation of people who have had contact with persons contracting the corona virus, and people for whom it may be suspected to have the corona virus. It also contains regulations on the isolation of persons who have tested positive for the corona virus.

Quarantine or isolation must take place in an apartment or other part of a building which can be separated off. While in quarantine or isolation, a person may not leave this apartment without the explicit consent of the public health department. All that is allowed is to spend time intermittently in a garden, terrace or balcony which belongs to the apartment. Those suspected to have the corona virus may leave the apartment for the purpose of taking a test ordered by the public health department. It must be ensured that the person in quarantine or isolation is separated from others living in the household, either spatially, or temporally. An example of "temporally separated" would be that meals are not eaten together, but rather at different times, one after the other. An example of "spatially separated" would be that the person concerned spends their time in another room from the other members of the household. During the quarantine or isolation, the person concerned may not receive visits from anyone who does not belong to the same household.

Please also take heed of the further notes, hygiene regulations and measures in the general decree Isolation from November 6, 2020.

The reading rooms are open, books and other media can be loaned out. The individual regulations and newest developments can be found on the library's homepage in the FAQs and the corona updates.

The opening hours for the University Library's reading rooms have been extended, starting on November 1, 2020. The new rules are valid, initially, until January 31, 2021. You can see the current opening hours on the University Library's website.

Since October 1, 2020 the buildings on campus are only open on week days (Monday to Friday) between 6:00 and 22:00. The buildings will remain closed at the weekend - with the exception of those sections in which classroom teaching is taking place in or which people need to enter to access the reading rooms which are open (PT, Recht and Wirtschaft, Central Library).

Currently, the university’s differing organizational units can still be contacted by telephone and email. This includes the Computer Center, the Language Center, the Registrar’s Office the student advice services, the International Office, examination offices, faculty management and offices of individual chairs. If you are unsure which email address to send your mail to, please use the general email address of the administration: registratur@ur.de

Registrar's Office

For questions on re-enrollment amongst other things, please find information and contact data on the webpage of the Registrar‘s Office.

Computer Center and CIP Pools

All CIP pools are closed with immediate effect. The information stand at the Computer Center is closed to the public. Questions from students regarding computer or IT support can still be submitted by email (support@rz.uni-regensburg.de) or telephone (0941 943-4444).

Service Point at the Language Center closed until further notice

For students: in urgent justified cases, certificates can be sent by post during this time. Please contact the Service Point by email at servicepoint.zsk@ur.de.

For students and staff: please note that lending out books or other media will not be possible until further notice.

University Archive closed

The University Archive is closed until further notice. In very urgent cases, please contact archiv@ur.de.

Family Service

Due to the current situation, the services offered by the Family Service are suspended until further notice.

Legal regulations on time spent in education (WissZeitVG) changed: maximum term extended

The maximum term for qualifications has been extended by a further 6 months
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has changed the law, extending the maximum term for academic and artistic personnel who are in a qualification phase by a further six months.

The Bundesrat voted through the change during its session on September 18, 2020. The change will come into effect on October 1, 2020.

→ to WissZeitVG-Befristungsdauer-Verlängerungs-Verordnung - WissBdVV

Registering practicals which require special laboratories or work rooms at the university

Details of any practical lesson which requires special laboratories or work rooms must be sent to the email address praxisveranstaltung-corona@ur.de, with a hygiene and infection-protection concept enclosed. The details to be given include the number of participants, the supervisor(s), how long it will last on the day, and the time period set aside for it.

The concept to be attached will be sent to the task force set up by the university leadership. Should the person registering the practical not hear from the task force within one work-day of submitting the registration, then the practical can take place as planned. Universität Regensburg will send all hygiene and infection-protection concepts to the Regensburg public health department in accordance with the Ministry of Education and Research's requirements.

Please note that lectures, seminars, exercise classes or other teaching which accompanies the practicals cannot be carried out in the classroom. Only those practical teaching activities which require laboratories or work rooms at the university can take place in person.

The website of the Safety Division contains aids and best-practice suggestions, which should make it easier to create hygiene and infection-protection concepts.
As a member of the teaching staff, please note the President's letter from May 6, 2020, which was distributed via the dean's offices in the individual faculties.

Because of the effects of the corona pandemic, the DFG has extended the deadlines for a number of their current calls for proposals. Deadlines will be extended further where necessary.

Interested researchers can find up-to-date information at www.dfg.de/foerderung/info_wissenschaft and in the individual entries for the calls for proposals.

Home office remains the recommended option for the summer semester

As the federal and state governments increasingly loosen the restrictions caused by the pandemic, many employees are wondering how and if home office will continue at UR.

The aim of the extension of home office was to significantly reduce the risk of infection on campus, and simultaneously so that should there be an infection, whole work-groups will not have to be sent into quarantine, risking the operations of the university. Both these aims still apply, as the virus is still circulating in the world and there is neither medicine nor vaccine. As long as this is the situation, home office will remain the preferred option. Indeed, the SARS-CoV-2 standards on health and safety from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs also stipulate that office work should be done in home office where possible. This will certainly be the case for the whole summer semester.

Should the course of the pandemic allow, initially a return from home office on a voluntary basis could be envisaged, in which work can be organized to avoid rooms having several persons in them or so that there is sufficient protective distancing. The continuation of such a return would remain dependent on the general development of the pandemic. This means, for example, that should there be a second wave of the infection, home office would be significantly extended once more.

Flexible hours of physical presence

University employees (including scientific staff, non-scientific staff, and trainees) can carry out their duties more flexibly until further notice, for example with more flexible physical presence, using offices alternately and with the further facilitation of home office. Users of the time-recording system ZI Web can record the start and end of their working hours via the web interface themselves, also when in home office. It is not necessary to register via the personnel departments. It is possible to take your work computer home to use for your work when in home office (except employees working in the central administration, who need to inform their direct supervisors of their needs).

Technical possibilities

The Computer Center has information on the technical possibilities of using home office (e.g. setting up a VPN) at https://www.uni-regensburg.de/rechenzentrum/aktuelles/it-corona/

Members of the university can use "UR Chat", Universität Regensburg's collaboration platform, for everyday teamwork in home office, short messages and exchanging files. You log in with your computer center account.

• Info: www.ur.de/rechenzentrum/it-services/messenger/ur-chat/
• To the platform: https://chat.ur.de

Purchase of hardware

The Computer Center notes that the purchase of larger IT equipment such as notebooks, PCs, tablets and monitors for work still has to take place through the IT purchasing department of the Computer Center. You can access the Computer Center Webshop at https://webshop.uni-regensburg.de/

Rules for members of staff who are pregnant following the lifting of the restrictions on going outside

All employees who were pregnant and could not work exclusively in home office were not allowed to work for the duration of the restrictions on going outside. As these restrictions were lifted on May 5, 2020, this prohibition is now, as a general rule, lifted. This means that as a basic principle employees who are pregnant can work once more on the university campus - subject to the normal regulations in place and the measures determined for health and safety at work (resulting from the risk assessment including efficacy checks).

In individual cases, it may still be necessary to prohibit working on campus should the risk assessment show that health and safety measures cannot guaranteed safety for such work on campus; and should working exclusively from home office not be possible.

It is necessary here to create a risk assessment for the work of the person who is pregnant or extend the current risk assessment to include the corona virus.

Supervisors who are affected are asked to send on the results of their risk assessments. When you need assistance here, please contact the Safety administration division.

Child care while working in research and teaching

Due to the cancellation of normal child care in daycare centers and schools, many parents at UR have the challenge of trying to care for their children at home while they simultaneously have tasks to complete in their studies or in research and teaching. The university's women's representative and the coordinating office of equal opportunities, equality and inclusion have created a document with suggestions and help for parents who are studying, researching and/or teaching:

PDF document "Kinderbetreuung und Studium bzw. Arbeit in Forschung und Lehre"

Home office/Release from duties for child care

On the basis of the decisions made by the Bavarian government on April 16, 2020, the regulations governing employees whose children need to be cared for continue to apply without change. This means, in particular, that leave is not limited to 10 days so long as schools and daycare are closed either completely or for whole year-groups.

Insofar as it is compatible with the smooth running of the services and is necessary for the care of children, public servants and other public employees are granted home office and, should this not be possible, released from their duties (under full pay) for the time the schools and other child care facilities are closed.

There is no fixed age limit of the child. Nevertheless, the release from duties only applies if it is shown that child care is needed. This is particularly the case for children over the age of 14. An employee can only be released from duties when no child care can be ensured despite exhausting all other possibilities. It is, however, not necessary to ask persons over 60 years of age to take on child care.

Employees are asked to inform their supervisors, should they need to care for their children. Upon returning to work, the release should be marked on the holiday card with an official declaration of the need for and extent of the need for child care.
No release for child care can be granted during the school holidays. It is necessary to use vacation, flexible working time or special leave.

Supporting dependents in need of care

Home office, remote work and subsidiary leave are also granted when this is for providing support for a dependent in need of care, should this be necessary and the support cannot be arranged in any other way. The need for support must be demonstrated. This is particularly the case when the dependent cannot be cared for at home. Employees are asked to inform their supervisors. Upon returning to work, the release should be marked on the holiday card with an official declaration of the need for and extent of the need for care.