On the weekend, the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the City of Aachen, and the Städteregion Aachen updated various coronavirus-related regulations, which also affects the operations of the University. Individuals entering Germany from a risk area (currently, e.g., Belgium) and spending less than a full day in the country are not subject to quarantine requirements. For this reason, employees or students returning home on the same day are permitted to commute to RWTH. Please note that the Aachen Health Department is currently asking commuters to refrain from reporting their entry to Germany as is usually required by the regulations, as this would overburden them unnecessarily.
Since the 7-day rate of infections exceeded the threshold of 40 last week, the City has put in place further measures to help contain the further spread of the coronavirus (increasing the minimum distance between individuals, introducing fixed seating arrangements, etc.) Further information on the new measures is available at: City of Aachen – Coronavirus – Aktuelles.
Importantly, teaching and exam arrangements at RWTH are currently not affected by these new measures, as agreed with the Städteregion.
However, events hosted by or taking place at RWTH which are open to external guests are indeed subject to the above restrictions. The currently valid regulations for holding in-person events at RWTH are available here.
The RWTH Crisis Management Team is closely following the recent developments in the Städteregion, particularly in the City of Aachen, and in our two neighboring countries and is greatly concerned about the situation. When going about your daily activities, please keep in mind that RWTH, with more than 50,000 members and their respective social circles, makes up a considerable part of the population in Aachen and the region. By consistently adhering to the hygiene rules, both at the University and privately, we can all make a considerable contribution to containing the spread of coronavirus, thus helping to avoiding further drastic measures.