At the moment, there is no general curfew. However, on 22nd of March 2020 and currently valid until 19th of April 2020, the Senate of Berlin introduced further restrictions of leaving your home: people must stay at home at all times. When leaving home, you must keep a distance of at least 1,5m to others (whereever possible) and have your ID / passport with you. We also suggest to have your Bürgeramt registration or a copy of your rental contract with you, in case you're being checked and need to prove your Berlin address.

Here are the exceptions of when you may leave home (amongst others):

• going to work or to volunteer work or help others
• going shopping for personal needs
• going out for individual sports or taking a walk - alone or with a maximum of one other person (if you share a household with others, you are allowed to go out with your flat mates)
• going to the airport, train station etc. to leave or to return to Berlin
• going out to take care of animals
• going out to visit a church, mosque or synagogue for individual praying or contemplation

Which shops are still open? Currently supermarkets, hardware stores ("Baumarkt"), gas stations, laundromats, book and newspaper stores, banks, pharmacies and medical supply stores and drug stores are allowed to be open. Restaurants are closed, but are allowed to offer pick-up and delivery services.

Source: ordinance of the Senate of Berlin (esp. part 5: "Vorübergehende Kontaktbeschränkungen", the ordinance is also available in English, Turkish, Spanish and other languages).

All students attending the intensive German course received an e-mail on 19th of March 2020 about whether they can continue or not. Please check your inbox.

Students who cannot or don't want to continue the course online, will receive a refund of 75% of the course fee. If you haven't done so yet, please e-mail us your bank details (name, IBAN, BIC) for the refund. Seeing that the university is operating under emergency mode, it might take a bit until the refund can be paid. Students from KHSB don't need to send their bank details to us, we'll take care of the refund directly with KHSB, since they paid for the course.

The orientation days which had been originally scheduled to take place from 25th to 27th of March 2020 have been cancelled. Instead, we're offering a series of live online webinars from 30th of March to 1st of April via Adobe Connect. Check our orientation programme for more details and step-by-step instructions about how to dowload the Adobe Connect meeting application.

Check our Facebook group Exchange students at ASH Berlin - summer term 2020 for (almost) daily recommendations and participate in our Co Co Creativity Club (Counter Corona Creativity Club) via Moodle!

Whether or not you wish to stay in Berlin is your personal and individual decision, but you should also watch out for information from your home university. From our side, we would be more than happy to have you stay with us in Berlin! We will provide updated information regularly, come up with some advice and ideas about what to do in the mean time (spending your nights out partying is no longer an option though, most clubs and cultural institutions are also closed until at least 20th of April...) and as soon as we've got green light to start the semester, we will be more than ready!

The semester is currently scheduled to start on 20th of April 2020 at the earliest, but further delay is to be expected. Orientation will take place via a series of online webinars (see FAQ above). During the semester, courses may take place in online format, too, or in block seminars. The coming semester will of course require some improvisation skills on our and on your side and we're happy to come up with individual solutions for everybody within the scope of our means. The semester period might be extended further into July, but at the moment we don't have any detailed news yet.

Again, whether or not you wish to stay in Berlin is your personal and individual decision, but you should also watch out for information from your home university. If you are thinking about returning home, please contact us immediately.

We will be able to refund parts of the semester fees to you, depending on your individual case. If you have questions about whether or not you need to pay back your Erasmus+ or study abroad grant, please contact your home university (or Austrian students contact the OEAD). The EU commission has expanded its force majeure rule to include the current Corona virus crisis. You will probably need us to confirm the academic period which you  have spent in Berlin so far and we're happy to do that. If you live in student dorm accommodation and you have been placed there via our internal contingent, please also get in touch with us.

Whether or not you wish to come to Berlin is your personal and individual decision, but you should also watch out for information from your home university. From our side, we would be more than happy to welcome you to Berlin!

The semester is currently scheduled to start on 20th of April 2020 at the earliest, but further delay is to be expected. During the semester, courses may take place in online format or in block seminars. We will provide updated information regularly and as soon as we've got green light to start the semester, we will be more than ready! Orientation will take place via a series of online webinars (see FAQ above). The coming semester will of course require some improvisation skills or our and your side and we're happy to come up with individual solutions for everybody within the scope of our means.

Before planning your trip to Berlin, please check the current situation at German and EU borders concerning travel restrictions and border controls, e.g. via the website of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community or the German Federal Foreign Office.

Again, whether or not you wish to come to Berlin is your personal and individual decision, but you should also watch out for information from your home university. If you are thinking about cancelling or postponing your exchange, please contact us immediately. We will be able to refund parts of the semester fees to you, depending on your individual case. If you have questions about whether or not you need to pay back your Erasmus+ or study abroad grant, please contact your home university (or Austrian students contact the OEAD). The EU commission has expanded its force majeure rule to include the current Corona virus crisis.

We also warmly offer the option of postponing your exchange to the next academic year 2020/21 (winter term: September 2020 - February 2021 / summer term: March 2021 - July 2021). Let us know if that might be an option and please also discuss this with your home university. Your home university might already have nominated other students for an exchange next year, but we might be able to accept more students due to this extraordinary situation.

Whether or not you will be able to start and continue your internship lies within the responsibility and regulations of the internship institution. They might also be subject to directives from the Berlin government and/or the local public health authority, so please contact your internship mentor about it. See above for information about staying, cancelling or postponing your stay in Berlin.

At the moment, we don't have any confirmed information that the semester period will be extended to later than the regular end of the teaching period (18th of July 2020). Within the following weeks, we will know more and update this website asap.

Even if the semester period is extended and you'll have to leave by 18th of July 2020, we don't expect this to be a problem. There is no central exam week at ASH Berlin anyway, so you'll probably be able to arrange an earlier leaving date individually with our teachers.

The Corona virus SARS-CoV-2 is spreading at a high speed and it is especially dangerous for people with prior illnesses or for people above 60 years of age. Therefore, it is of highest importance to make sure the health system and hospitals remain operable. This can only be ensured if the speed of the spread of the virus is effectively slowed down and this can only be done by reducing all possible ways of getting infected. Mid- and long term, this decision will save people's lives.

More information about the Corona virus SARS-CoV-2 is available via the Berlin public health authority (information in English, also available in Turkish), the Berlin hospital Charité (information in English), the German Institute for Public Health (Robert Koch Institut, information partially in English), the Federal Center for Health Education (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, information in German) or the Federal Ministry of Health (Bundesgesundheitsministerium, information in German).

Prof. Dr. Drosten, one of Germany's leading virologists and head of the virology department at Charité hospital, does a daily (German) podcast about the current situation, scientific background and measures to be taken which we find very interesting. The podcast is published via NDR, one of Germany's public broadcasting channels.

If you have come from or travelled via risk zones or you have been in touch with an infected person, please stay at home for two weeks and carefully monitor your health condition. If you show symptoms of an infection within these two weeks (mostly fever and cough, also a running nose, a sore throat or rheumatic pains), you may call the Berlin public health authority (030 90 282828) or the on-call doctors' service (116117) to ask for a test. You may also go to one of the test centres all over Berlin.

If you have been tested positively for the Corona virus SARS-CoV-2, you must immediately inform ASH Berlin (e-mail to rektorin@ avoid-unrequested-mailsash-berlin.eu and incoming@ avoid-unrequested-mailsash-berlin.eu) and the Berlin public health authority of the district in which you live (if you're not sure in which district you live, enter your postal code in the search tool of the German Institute for Public Health, it will then show the contact details of your local Berlin public health authority).