In September I was allowed to physically return to work in Austria and Hungary and have been teaching most of my classes "live" since then. Anyway, this afternoon the Austrian university sent me a notification that all instruction was being reverted back online for the remainder of the semester.
The email did not surprise me much, but I do consider it ominous. I suspect I will receive a similar communication from my Hungarian employer in the coming week. Moreover, I very much doubt these new measures will be limited to institutions of higher education, which means Austria and Hungary might be teetering on the edge of another round of hard national lockdowns.
Hey, why not? Just yesterday Ireland declared it was locking down for a minimum of six weeks.
The worse I had anticipated earlier this week has arrived much sooner than I expected.
At this point, all I can say is 'bring it.'