Covid-19: MPIIB on minimum operation

March 20, 2020
The management of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology has decided to largely reduce the Institute's operations as of March 17. With this measure, we want to curtail the spread of coronavirus and protect our staff from a possible infection.

News about the spread of the corona infection and the countermeasures against the virus are currently overflowing. In view of the current situation, the MPIIB , in accordance with politicians and experts, is doing its part to slow down the spread of the virus. To this end, the number of people working at the Institute is greatly reduced.

"Our Institute is trying to react appropriately and our main concern is to protect our staff, their families and friends," says Arturo Zychlinsky, Managing Director at MPIIB.

Ongoing experiments to be finished

Experiments take time, and once they have been started, they often follow several steps that cannot be interrupted. For this reason, the MPIIB management already called for the orderly completion of ongoing experiments at the end of last week. The MPIIB wanted to prevent the loss of scientifically valuable resources such as cell cultures or patient samples. The researchers were given the opportunity to go directly to the home office after finishing the experiments.

Important parts of the Institute's infrastructure, such as technical services, administration, IT service and animal care, will continue to a reduced extent. This will ensure that operations can be smoothly resumed, once we are over the acute restrictions caused by the corona pandemic.

All meetings cancelled

All meetings at the Institute are cancelled until the end of April. But the exchange among colleagues remains important. "The modern means of communication, from chat programs and video conferences to our intranet, offer extensive opportunities for exchanging ideas, working together and staying in touch despite isolation," says Helga Andree, head of administration.

For the MPIIB, the simple basic rules of pandemic control remain the same: avoid direct contact, stay at home and keep calm.

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