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Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control.
It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
On September 24 2020 02:26 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2020 02:13 LegalLord wrote:
Wearing a face shield and an N95 is kind of a party pooper, though. How does it compare to long term lung damage?
How do you compare it to the health damages of loneliess, which can be compared to smoking 15 sigarettes each day?
I mean young people are those who are the least at risk for damages/death from Covid19, while also having less close connections (like kids, girlfriend or boyfriend) at a time where they are likely to live in a small appartment with no garden. They are currently doing something which is likely to hurt their own health, for the rest of us. I think we should appreciate that.
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Northern Ireland26794 Posts
On September 24 2020 16:58 Neneu wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2020 02:26 Gorsameth wrote:On September 24 2020 02:13 LegalLord wrote:
Wearing a face shield and an N95 is kind of a party pooper, though. How does it compare to long term lung damage? How do you compare it to the health damages of loneliess, which can be compared to smoking 15 sigarettes each day? I mean young people are those who are the least at risk for damages/death from Covid19, while also having less close connections (like kids, girlfriend or boyfriend) at a time where they are likely to live in a small appartment with no garden. They are currently doing something which is likely to hurt their own health, for the rest of us. I think we should appreciate that.
Loneliness and mental health problems were plain enough to see prior to Covid that in various ways weren’t taken seriously enough. Hopefully the extreme situation of Covid can expose some of these existing issues and keep them in the conversation as we transition to normality.
Yeah the young or relatively young are having to suck up a whole lot and whenever cases start to spike are invariably blamed, which is regrettable.
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On September 24 2020 16:38 Harris1st wrote:
Is this dosage thing scientifially proven? I have not heard this in the news or anywhere. Though I'm not listening much to Covid news anymore
Because this could be a huuuuuuge incentive for people of all ages to keep living with the restrictions (masks, distance, careful, no parties) and eventually be rewareded with immunity.
There's definitely been a lot of interesting, albeit potentially inconclusive, studies that link an exposure to a reduced viral load with more favorable disease outcomes. While it's probably too early to treat anything like that as "scientifically proven" it seems to have been studied a lot and it makes some sense.
It also aligns well with lower exposure during the summer months since the virus is quite resilient to low temperatures, but breaks down at higher ones.
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On September 24 2020 16:38 Harris1st wrote:
Is this dosage thing scientifially proven? I have not heard this in the news or anywhere. Though I'm not listening much to Covid news anymore
Because this could be a huuuuuuge incentive for people of all ages to keep living with the restrictions (masks, distance, careful, no parties) and eventually be rewareded with immunity.
Dosage is already a thing in various infections. The big thing is that getting actual solid dosage data will take a super long time because the scientific method is a complete fucking dumpster fire during times of emergency. Science is so slow and methodical and intent on extremely verified accuracy that the information will arrive too late. But there are already a ton of studies showing that people wearing masks tend to get a lot less sick from covid. And there are a variety of other solid case studies that give extreme indication covid is dose-dependent. However, the scientific method and standard practices in virology and epidemiology will ultimately fail humanity, as it has been, during this time, because it is inadequate during a sudden pandemic. What I will say is that my wife is an actual covid researcher and her and her team are all actively assuming and operating as if it is dosage-dependent.
"Dosage" can actually mean a ton of different things. Big difference between the amount of virus to enter your body and amount of virus to actually survive within your body. Then the virus needs to actually infect cells. Each of these steps could be called dose. HIV, for example, is an extremely fragile virus. Lots of people have HIV enter their body and all the little shitheads just die before they can do anything. You need to kinda dump HIV into someone for them to get it so that the statistics work out.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-06-06-1995157156-story.html
In addition, the AIDS virus is not very infectious. This means that a fairly large number of virus particles must enter the body in order for the infection to take hold. That is one explanation for why AIDS is not transmitted by kissing, however intimate: Saliva contains too few virus particles. In contrast, the Hepatitis B virus is very infectious: a small number of virus particles can trigger an infection. Finally, the AIDS virus cannot penetrate intact skin. It must, instead, gain direct access to the bloodstream through cuts or open sores. Not surprisingly, therefore, people with other infections that cause sores on their genitals (such as herpes or syphilis) are more likely to be infected upon exposure to HIV than people without such sores.
Also, when someone sneezes in a room, but really far away from you, gas dynamics stuff means you very likely have their spit in your mouth almost immediately, even if in incredibly small amounts. There are tons of times when you are actively inhaling contagions and it just doesn't really turn into anything. When a very small amount of a contagion enters your body, your body kills it with its immune system. But sometimes it dies through other means and your body can't add it to the virus database. There is a sweet spot where your body knows what just happened but it didn't really do anything significant. The prevailing theory is that mutual mask use can help land people in that sweet spot.
Examples like church choirs shitting on the whole building, hair dressers not infecting a single person while wearing a mask, the South Korean Starbucks employees not getting infected while wearing a mask, many different examples show it is INSANELY LIKELY covid symptoms track with dosage. So I won't have any amazingly conclusive study to show you, because it doesn't exist. But I will tell you I personally know people who work the virus every day and are working under the assumptions I am putting forth. Take it for what you will!
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Scientists have figured out at least one major cause of severe symptoms, and it can lead the way to better treatment. Apparently problems with how interferon works, either because of an autoimmune reaction or because of rare genetic mutations, has been found to be linked to about 15% of people with severe symptoms.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/genetic-immune-defects-may-impair-ability-fight-covid-19
That's good, because both the autoimmune disease and the rare mutation can be tested for fairly easily, allowing early identification of at-risk patients and better care.
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On the topic of universities in the United States, here's some data on schools in the Big Ten region and their COVID-19 cases, alongside testing statistics. All of the schools are taking different approaches, and it's interesting to see the results here. I wish this data had a way to scale each school to a per student level instead of just base numbers, as the student bodies very heavily in size.
Drawing attention specifically to the tests administered per day, the University of Illinois has a strict testing regimen for students on campus, who had to report where they were going to be located before being allowed to register for classes. The school has provided a contact tracing app and has mandatory testing. Students on campus are required to get tested 1-3 times a week, depending on schedule, and must display their status on the app showing that they recently tested negative in order to enter a campus building. Testing is saliva-based, and results are typically available within 6-24 hours.
Their COVID-19 cases spiked about three weeks ago because over 100 students were properly breaking quarantine after testing positive, going to testing sites across campus, and getting re-tested in hopes of a false negative. An entire fraternity was suspended, and I'm not sure what happened to the students; the school also instituted a more severe lockdown for two weeks, which ended last week. The cases don't seem to have gone up since then, and the frequency of testing seems to remove the typical 14-day lag on covid graphs.
The campus is quiet, although bars are open (recently restricted to 21 and older for entry instead of 19 for entry and 21 for alcohol purchases); a sense of stupor seems to have overtaken many of my fellow students, as online classes are more difficult for many people. Luckily, I only have one class in person in an auditorium, and don't have anything else to leave the house for besides testing (groceries delivered to your door is a godsend). More likely than not, today will be my 10th test coming back negative.
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The dutch bureau of statistics has calculated that the epidemic will most likely lower life expectancy this year with up to 1,2 years. This has led to many reactions on social media that the epidemic isnt all that bad. (even though such a decline in life expectancy would be unprecedented since ww2).
What people seem to forget is that long term effects and damage of the disease are not taken into account. It is completely unknown how getting the disease (and possibly getting the disease multiple times) will effect the life expectancy of young people in the long run.
Seeing a drop in life expectancy of potentially (the final number is still unclear as we still have 3 months to go) 1+years in the first year alone is very worrying though from a statistical point of vieuw and indicates that the effect on life expectance could by far larger in the long run.
The average age of people dying with the disease doesnt differ that much from the average life expectancy and this also has led people to make the wrong conclusion that it barely effects life expectancy and that it only effects people who would have died anyway but here another important thing is beeing overlooked.
To simplify the situation in an example:say average life expectancy is 80 years and everyone 80 years or older would die from the disease. The average age of people dying would be even higher then the average life expectancy but this would still negatively impact life expectancy in a big way.
Life expectancy is an average,some people die at a much younger age and this is balanced by other people dying at a higher age. If all the people dying at a higher age would now die at the average age then the average will drop considerably.
The 3rd thing that has to be considered is that this is the impact on life expectancy with measures beeing taken to slow down the spread and to prevent an overload of the medical system. Without any measures beeing taken the impact would of course have been higher.
If life expectancy would drop with 1 year in the very long run with no measures taken then i do agree that it would not be worth it from a social,economic and medical point of vieuw to let the disease have the enormous impact on our lives that it has today. But this is obviously not the case. Its 1 year (this is still an estimate) with meassures beeing taken and without taking into account the long term effects on life expectancy (about which not much is known for now).
Its also without taking into account the negative effects the disease has on the life of people who get the disease and recover but still suffer from long term negative effects.
I kinda would like to ask people,how big of a drop in long term life expectancy (taken into account the long term damage and in a scenario where many people might get the disease several times, in a situation where no mitigating measures are beeing taken) would be reasonable to accept.
How much of their own life expectancy are people willing to sacrifice for beeing able to life their lives in a more or less normal way now? Is it 1 year,is it 5 years,is it 10 years or even more?. The younger people are the more they would be willing to sacrifice i guess.
When you are young its easy to forget about your life many years from now and to not put much value in what will happen in the (far) future. Its why people go smoking at a young age,because the negative effects will only become apearent several decades later.
Another thing that should not be forgotten is that letting the disease run free would still have an enormous social and economical impact. Some people might not care about the risks but a large part of the population would care. They would self isolate,go out and spend less,possibly call in sick for work far more. Healthcare costs would rise,at least initially. Pretending and acting if the disease isnt there wont magically make our live return to the way it was before the epidemic.
But ya,some things to consider that might be worth thinking about.
My own opinion is very mixed,i do fear the disease myself (i am not part of the high risk group when it comes to age and things like overweight though i probably am at an increased risk when it comes to general physical condition) and i also do care about the effects it has on vulnerable people.
But i can see and understand the arguments from other side as well which makes it difficult to have a clear opinion.
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Impact on life expectancy is going to be pretty drastic I think. For every person that dies, ~5-10 are hospitalized, and ~90 go through something between a slight cold to bad flu. We won't know for sure until decades down the line what the effect on lifespan is, but there's reasons to suspect that it's going to be bad.
So many sources out there (and linked in this thread at some point), show that it has potential to damage literally everything in the body. Even when dying of "old age", the cause is generally organ failure of some sort. If you were to weaken every organ by some amount, you pretty much guarantee that you'll conk out just a bit earlier unless you get hit by a bus or something.
If one person dies 10 years early, 10 people die 5 years early, and 60 people die on average 1 year early, that is already 1.2 years less of life expectancy for that group. If the dutch government is predicting up to 1.2 years as a whole, that points to it potentially being worse for health than my example, because no country will have 100% infection.
I personally (young, active, healthy) am not willing to catch it because besides the chance of killing older people I care about, I also recognize that there's a double digit percentage chance that I will have decreased QoL for the rest of my life and die probably years earlier.
I'd rather suffer another ~6 months of this until a vaccine becomes widespread enough, because the risk-benefit really isn't in my favor. A virus doesn't give a shit about me having fun, and quite frankly, for most people on this website they can entertain themselves digitally pretty well anyways.
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This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic.
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Northern Ireland26794 Posts
On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic.
It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing.
Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting.
Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it?
Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc.
Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational
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We could talk a lot about if some "changes" are better or worse. That is highly subjective though!
During Lockdown:
You have your own house with a garden out back, where you can sit and your children can play... Well, Lockdown sucks, but it isn't that bad!
Or, you are living in a small flat, not much room, your children are not allowed outside, ... man, can we finally stop this Lockdown shit??? I want out!!!
Or homeoffice:
Aside from people that can't work from home - I didn't have any homeoffice - even if you could do it, many people are not happy, have no good place to work at home, .. Or they feel "invaded", because before this shit the moment you stepped into your home, work was "gone" and now it is still there...
And here we have a few that would happily work from home probably even after Covid, because they like it and don't miss the stress of driving to work etc.
Or most of us here in this forum are probably gamers and can entertain themselves when we are not allowed to go outside and such. But it is basically still a "niche" hobby. There are a lot of people, that want to go outside, do stuff, meet people, they "need" that for a good and healthy living! Mankind is social! Touching is important!
Even me! Yeah, I'm a gamer. But in later years gaming dropped down in my list. My main hobby is all about meeting people ... a lot of people ... and getting really close to them! (before you think the wrong thing, I'm a dancer  ) And believe me, there are enough people out there, that don't give a fuck and "make things happen"! (and yes, I'm one of them, sue me!)
A "funny" thing in a total different direction, but just a a town over from my place was during our lockdown: police arrested an "underground hairdresser"! I admit, having a bad haircut isn't that "deadly" but there are people that miss those "little" things. I remember, maybe in April, I read a twitter question about what people were missing. And one person said basically "screw it, I want to have my hair done, a manicure,wellness, ... ARGH"
It's all part of life!
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On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational
I think its generational. Lots of big tech companies are realizing they can sell corporate real-estate and various other things. I'm sure shitty business consulting companies run by boomers are gonna be like "Time to get back to work!!!"
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2nd derivative of new COVID cases in Oregon is tracking extremely worryingly closely with temperature. Inversely, of course. If it turns out a bunch of low or no symptom infections were barely warm enough to not get bad, this is going to be a train wreck.
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On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational
I know a lot of people are really fond of WFH, but personally I'm not a fan. Without a doubt it leads to lower productivity and significantly more communication slip-ups. The first few months it was nice and convenient, and I suppose I can do it productively for another year if I must. But I definitely don't prefer it to non-pandemic mostly-in-office work.
I suppose I like WFH as an option, but as a mandate it's pretty upsetting. The company definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to reduce office space, though.
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On September 26 2020 02:46 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational I know a lot of people are really fond of WFH, but personally I'm not a fan. Without a doubt it leads to lower productivity and significantly more communication slip-ups. The first few months it was nice and convenient, and I suppose I can do it productively for another year if I must. But I definitely don't prefer it to non-pandemic mostly-in-office work. I suppose I like WFH as an option, but as a mandate it's pretty upsetting. The company definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to reduce office space, though.
Depends on the company I guess.
Higher-ups at mine shared that across most metrics, productivity was up high single digits-low double digits in the first 4 months of WFH (Mar-July). In general, employee happiness varied a lot. Lack of commute was the biggest driver of positive satisfaction, poor team communication, engagement and inability to separate work from home life drove disastisfaction.
I don't expect to go into the office until next year at the earliest, and probably even next summer. Could be worse though, one of my coworkers has MS, and is immunocompromised. He hasn't done anything other than sit at home and walk around his neighbourhood for half a year now.
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On September 26 2020 04:14 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2020 02:46 LegalLord wrote:On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational I know a lot of people are really fond of WFH, but personally I'm not a fan. Without a doubt it leads to lower productivity and significantly more communication slip-ups. The first few months it was nice and convenient, and I suppose I can do it productively for another year if I must. But I definitely don't prefer it to non-pandemic mostly-in-office work. I suppose I like WFH as an option, but as a mandate it's pretty upsetting. The company definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to reduce office space, though. Depends on the company I guess. Higher-ups at mine shared that across most metrics, productivity was up high single digits-low double digits in the first 4 months of WFH (Mar-July). In general, employee happiness varied a lot. Lack of commute was the biggest driver of positive satisfaction, poor team communication, engagement and inability to separate work from home life drove disastisfaction. I don't expect to go into the office until next year at the earliest, and probably even next summer. Could be worse though, one of my coworkers has MS, and is immunocompromised. He hasn't done anything other than sit at home and walk around his neighbourhood for half a year now.
Once companies realize how much money they can save, the tune will change for the less advanced companies. WFH has the ability to save companies a ton of money, if they put the work in to make it work. It is essentially free money. I think the reason we are seeing tech companies reap the benefits a lot quicker than boomer industries is the culture of the higher ups. People more technology focused are generally quicker to adapt to new and unique situations.
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On September 26 2020 04:32 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2020 04:14 Lmui wrote:On September 26 2020 02:46 LegalLord wrote:On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational I know a lot of people are really fond of WFH, but personally I'm not a fan. Without a doubt it leads to lower productivity and significantly more communication slip-ups. The first few months it was nice and convenient, and I suppose I can do it productively for another year if I must. But I definitely don't prefer it to non-pandemic mostly-in-office work. I suppose I like WFH as an option, but as a mandate it's pretty upsetting. The company definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to reduce office space, though. Depends on the company I guess. Higher-ups at mine shared that across most metrics, productivity was up high single digits-low double digits in the first 4 months of WFH (Mar-July). In general, employee happiness varied a lot. Lack of commute was the biggest driver of positive satisfaction, poor team communication, engagement and inability to separate work from home life drove disastisfaction. I don't expect to go into the office until next year at the earliest, and probably even next summer. Could be worse though, one of my coworkers has MS, and is immunocompromised. He hasn't done anything other than sit at home and walk around his neighbourhood for half a year now. Once companies realize how much money they can save, the tune will change for the less advanced companies. WFH has the ability to save companies a ton of money, if they put the work in to make it work. It is essentially free money. I think the reason we are seeing tech companies reap the benefits a lot quicker than boomer industries is the culture of the higher ups. People more technology focused are generally quicker to adapt to new and unique situations.
You have an odd bit of big-tech worship here. It's obviously going to be the most straightforward to implement for companies for which a large portion of the workforce just writes software. Congrats to them for being in the right industry for this occasion, I guess? Every other company should just learn to code.
On September 26 2020 04:14 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2020 02:46 LegalLord wrote:On September 25 2020 18:28 WombaT wrote:On September 25 2020 18:15 Luolis wrote:
This hasn't really affected my life a whole lot other than I've been able to work from home since march. Now our company decided that we will all go back to the office. I find this idiotic. It seems many of the positives of Covid are being wiped away pretty quickly, which I find both strange and disappointing. Not every job suits working from home and plenty of people enjoy the office camaraderie. At least from my peer group most people doing so are performing better in their jobs than before as they’re comfortable at home/less tired from commuting. Odd really. It’s been shown to work fine for many people and has productivity benefits as well as wellbeing benefits for people, why the seeming rush to abandon it? Started college again and I’m quite happy first semester is remote because it cuts 3 hours total travel time on each day I have classes. Which really does add up to free a lot of study time when you’re having to work a job, have kiddo over to teach Starcraft on weekends etc. Plus I work a lot quicker on my home setup with my Filco Majestouch signed by such luminaries as Liquid HerO, Tastosis and more! Inspirational I know a lot of people are really fond of WFH, but personally I'm not a fan. Without a doubt it leads to lower productivity and significantly more communication slip-ups. The first few months it was nice and convenient, and I suppose I can do it productively for another year if I must. But I definitely don't prefer it to non-pandemic mostly-in-office work. I suppose I like WFH as an option, but as a mandate it's pretty upsetting. The company definitely seems to be chomping at the bit to reduce office space, though. Depends on the company I guess. Higher-ups at mine shared that across most metrics, productivity was up high single digits-low double digits in the first 4 months of WFH (Mar-July). In general, employee happiness varied a lot. Lack of commute was the biggest driver of positive satisfaction, poor team communication, engagement and inability to separate work from home life drove disastisfaction. I don't expect to go into the office until next year at the earliest, and probably even next summer. Could be worse though, one of my coworkers has MS, and is immunocompromised. He hasn't done anything other than sit at home and walk around his neighbourhood for half a year now.
Not that much different, although it's more like productivity is down high single / low double digits. Overall the higher-ups were surprised that it was only that much reduced, when lab work is a big part of what the workforce does.
The upsides/downsides are pretty accurate as well, and I'd add another corollary on the poor communication: onboarding new people is a royal pain. On the positive side, I'm sure that if I had a long commute I'd be very pleased indeed with WFH despite any of the aforementioned downsides. I chose to live close to the office for a reason, though, because I remember that an hour-long commute was soul-crushing when I had one.
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I haven't really checked in a while, but the USA seems to be somewhat under control in the large democratic states - California has dropped steadily since July-Aug alongside Washington and a few other states I've checked
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states
The number of daily tests has reached all time highs, and the positivity rate has dramatically dropped alongside total positive cases.
There's still a lot of variance amongst states though - Alabama for example is at 12% positive, Florida at 10%, and Florida just opened up all businesses including bars/nightclubs with no restrictions. I'm guessing that they're going to pretty quickly find themselves underwater again after having gotten it down from the July high of 20% positive rates.
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EPT
