EPTIn many places I've been (in office and off-site), people generally wear masks outside and open areas (corridor, pantry, large conference rooms). But then people have a habit of taking off masks in cramped cubicles and during small meetings behind closed doors (especially between close colleagues in same team). I get that face-to-face interaction is a good signal of trust and bonding. But just seems rather worrying how masking up is becoming more of a weak box-ticking exercise.
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RKC
2848 Posts
In many places I've been (in office and off-site), people generally wear masks outside and open areas (corridor, pantry, large conference rooms). But then people have a habit of taking off masks in cramped cubicles and during small meetings behind closed doors (especially between close colleagues in same team). I get that face-to-face interaction is a good signal of trust and bonding. But just seems rather worrying how masking up is becoming more of a weak box-ticking exercise. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On January 10 2022 14:50 RKC wrote: How's the mask policy at your workplaces? No masks required as a "fully vaccinated facility." Thankfully. Shame about the people who we lost because they didn't get vaccinated, though. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4397 Posts
See : Guardian live updates https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2022/jan/10/novak-djokovic-appeal-federal-circuit-court-cancellation-australian-visa-covid-vaccination-live-updates To summarise: The Australian government has agreed to revoke the decision to cancel Novak Djokovic’s visa last week, meaning the visa he came to Australia on stands, and he will be released from detention and get his passport and other personal effects back. The reason for this is the government acknowledged it didn’t give Djokovic enough time after notifying him of the intent to cancel his visa to speak to others and respond fully. Notwithstanding that, the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, can now personally intervene and decide to cancel his visa anyway on entirely new grounds. Which the government flagged in court may be something that happens. If that happens, it could end up back in court because Djokovic would face being banned from Australia for three years if the minister decides to cancel the visa. The hearing has ended now. That’s all for now. | ||
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Larry_Equadoro
United States7 Posts
I'm not taking responsibility for other peoples' lives (because I cannot), just my own. In any case, in my opinion the most responsible thing, for yourself and others, is to get vaccinated.[/QUOTE] Exactly, that's what I tried to say! Do not forget that it's your opinion. People should be aware of regular online folks that just have opinions, not facts, and at the end of the day, they will face the consequences from the chosen decision, not the online guys. | ||
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Geisterkarle
Germany3257 Posts
On January 10 2022 12:07 Slydie wrote: The effectiveness of both cloth and surgical masks was always dubious, and I have never seen evidence they make any difference in bars and restaurants, for example. Even wearing a N95 in stores won't really make an impact. Stores afaik. are not where people get infected, especially if it is possible to keep a distance and the ventilation is decent. People don't sneeze eachoter in the face while shopping anyway .You would need obscene numbers of N95s to stop just a single case, but at least you feel morally superior! Since January 2021 N95 (FFP2 in our parts) are mandatory here in Bavaria, where I live. I don't write "Germany" because the other counties don't have that, they use surgical masks. And seriously you couldn't see an improvement there; or someone could argue that Bavaria was probably doing worse than the rest of Germany. So going with "correlation" you shouldn't use N95! Austria has mandatory N95 too; they are currently in full lockdown mode again! So, yeah... big help those N95 maks... btw. no cloth masks are allowed anywhere here! Feel yourself lucky to be able to use them! I wish I could too... | ||
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emperorchampion
Canada9496 Posts
On January 10 2022 16:52 Larry_Equadoro wrote: Exactly, that's what I tried to say! Do not forget that it's your opinion. People should be aware of regular online folks that just have opinions, not facts, and at the end of the day, they will face the consequences from the chosen decision, not the online guys. To be fair, we all face the consequences of an increasingly strained health care system because of unvaccinated people. Edit: also to say that it’s a fact vaccines reduce severe illness, not just my opinion. | ||
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Razyda
913 Posts
Not sure If true, can someone confirm? and if true what's the reason for arrest? Seems like true, live-stream from outside of his lawyer office: | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28779 Posts
On January 10 2022 14:50 RKC wrote: How's the mask policy at your workplaces? In many places I've been (in office and off-site), people generally wear masks outside and open areas (corridor, pantry, large conference rooms). But then people have a habit of taking off masks in cramped cubicles and during small meetings behind closed doors (especially between close colleagues in same team). I get that face-to-face interaction is a good signal of trust and bonding. But just seems rather worrying how masking up is becoming more of a weak box-ticking exercise. At the school I work at, I've seen exactly one student and 0 teachers wear masks at work. We're a school specializing on educating health care workers and many of my colleagues are former nurses/ambulance workers. The one person I've seen wearing a mask, is Japanese.  I can't picture teaching while wearing a mask. The important thing for us is that we should be more flexible in terms of students being absent if they're at all symptomatic, and some people perhaps needing extensions to assignments they're working on, high vaccination rates (amazingly, according to the local newspaper for trondheim, 100% of our 16-17 year olds have taken the first dose!), that kind of thing. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45380 Posts
On January 10 2022 18:59 Liquid`Drone wrote: At the school I work at, I've seen exactly one student and 0 teachers wear masks at work. We're a school specializing on educating health care workers and many of my colleagues are former nurses/ambulance workers. The one person I've seen wearing a mask, is Japanese. I can't picture teaching while wearing a mask. The important thing for us is that we should be more flexible in terms of students being absent if they're at all symptomatic, and some people perhaps needing extensions to assignments they're working on, high vaccination rates (amazingly, according to the local newspaper for trondheim, 100% of our 16-17 year olds have taken the first dose!), that kind of thing. My public school in New Jersey has a very strict mask policy for 100% of the school day except for when students/faculty eat lunch. It's also encouraged that everyone be vaccinated + boostered, although harder to enforce for us than a mask policy. The official vaccinated percentages at our school aren't public knowledge (afaik) but I've heard it's almost all teachers and most of our (high school) students. Teaching with a mask on isn't that annoying for me, but not being able to see my students' faces can be frustrating. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22157 Posts
On January 10 2022 20:21 BlackJack wrote: The 7 day daily average deaths in the US was 1084 on Dec 26th. 12 days later (jan 7th) its 1513 and going strait up. I'm very unimpressed by this Omicron variant. It's almost entirely upper respiratory disease. Runny noses and sore throats instead of pneumonia and hypoxia. It's a bit of a problem that COVID is so scary to so many people because in any other time people with these cold/flu symptoms would just stay in bed for a couple of days and have some soup. Now they are waiting in line for 5 hours to get tested and trying to get in to see their doctor and showing up at emergency rooms. I think the good news is that this variant is so infectious we'll probably be at peak cases in 1-2 weeks tops. I think by the end of next week we will crest the wave of daily cases and start the see the decline, with the wave of hospitalizations lagging a little bit behind that. 1500 deaths a day at the start of the peak might seem unimpressive to you. To me it looks to be going to be bad. Wouldn't surprise me if the US will once again be able to count Covid deaths in a 9/11 per day. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45380 Posts
On January 10 2022 20:21 BlackJack wrote: I'm very unimpressed by this Omicron variant. It's almost entirely upper respiratory disease. Runny noses and sore throats instead of pneumonia and hypoxia. It's a bit of a problem that COVID is so scary to so many people because in any other time people with these cold/flu symptoms would just stay in bed for a couple of days and have some soup. Now they are waiting in line for 5 hours to get tested and trying to get in to see their doctor and showing up at emergency rooms. I think the good news is that this variant is so infectious we'll probably be at peak cases in 1-2 weeks tops. I think by the end of next week we will crest the wave of daily cases and start the see the decline, with the wave of hospitalizations lagging a little bit behind that. As we've seen with every other variant, it really matters whether or not you're vaccinated. Omicron is no different from the other variants in that those who are hospitalized and experiencing worse symptoms are disproportionately people who are unvaccinated. Thankfully, the symptoms don't appear to be quite as deadly as the delta variant, but given how infectious omicron is, it can still do a lot of damage over a broad population, especially if long-term symptoms are also an issue. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45380 Posts
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Elroi
Sweden5599 Posts
On January 10 2022 14:50 RKC wrote: How's the mask policy at your workplaces? I work at a modern languages department at a university in Sweden. I haven't seen a single person, faculty or student, wearing a mask during the whole pandemic. But during the fall semester of 2020 all activities, lectures, meetings etc., were on zoom and still many faculty meetings are online. I'm extremely thankful for this policy since a mask mandate would have made our job much more difficult and, to be honest, to me it doesn't seem justified to force people to wear masks in general. At least not in a Swedish context with relatively low levels of population density and obesity etc. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4744 Posts
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RKC
2848 Posts
I'm still torn between the need of masking up. But whatever the policy, common sense should prevail. I do feel masking up and social distancing impedes the feel of physical meetings. Hence might as well have classes/meetings online if strict SOP is to be complied. Not being able to see each other's faces, talk freely, and shake hands just defeats the whole point of physically meeting up. A lot of workplaces where I am have this middle-ground half-hearted policies which frankly befuddles me. (I once had to attend a meeting at a place which required testing on site to enter. Some attendees connected remotely. Chairs had to be spaced out. Mask on at all times. Managers who call for such meetings are a real pain.) | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23759 Posts
On January 10 2022 20:53 Gorsameth wrote: The 7 day daily average deaths in the US was 1084 on Dec 26th. 12 days later (jan 7th) its 1513 and going strait up. 1500 deaths a day at the start of the peak might seem unimpressive to you. To me it looks to be going to be bad. Wouldn't surprise me if the US will once again be able to count Covid deaths in a 9/11 per day. US has averaged more than 7,000 people killed by Covid every week for the last ~5 months now, it was already bad before Omicron imo. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
I guess it fits, since it really seemed to come and go almost at random. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8828 Posts
On January 11 2022 01:12 LegalLord wrote: I just saw this twit about the Australia situation: https://twitter.com/AndrewRiddle36/status/1480324097024270343 I guess it fits, since it really seemed to come and go almost at random. you sent a bunch of convicts to an island and youre confused about kidnapping? | ||
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