Coronavirus

ubarose wrote: @Southernman

In CT, prison guards and teachers have gotten bumped up the list because our prison and school systems are on the verge of collapse. Just not enough people to keep them staffed. A lot of people in those professions have chosen to retire or take unpaid leave rather than risk catching COVID, and no one’s lining up to to take their place.

Interesting again. No sign of that at all in the UK and students have been back at all levels of schooling including university since September. Students to get sent home to isolate for 2 weeks if they test positive and uni students, because they're young and don't think as carefully as older adults, managed to create major outbreaks nearly as soon as they were back and many were isolated to their dorms/flats for a few weeks - but no occurrences at all (that I'm aware of, and we have strong public service unions here) about teachers or others resigning/retiring or simple not showing up.
And adding, the vaccination priority/schedule have been created by medical/scientific govt leaders.
Every country will do it their own way of course, depending on their specific situation and culture - in the UK it is to save lives by both vaccinating the vulnerable but also by doing that keeping people out of hospitals so they don't have to stop doing their normal non-covid duties.

My grandmother was hospitalized on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then passed away in the early morning on the day after Thanksgiving. The funeral was about a week later, but I couldn't attend due to the nature of how things are. All around, just terrible.

She was 97, so while not unexpected, still hard to get used to just the same.

Very sorry, Space Ghost.

Sorry for your loss.

I am sorry. So sorry. Also, a little angry, but mostly sorry. I hope you can find comfort in these trying times. Let me know if there's anything I can do.

OK, serious post here - the US people better get their collective minds around this disease, that it exists and kills, before the new variant that is closing down the UK shows up.
It will show up, even though European countries are already stopping travel and freight from the UK (oh, if only to go back 10 months and the world doing that then), and this more infectious variant will have hospitals filling up faster than you can cope - it may not be any deadlier but it will kill more by the greater number of infections and the health system being overwhelmed.

2021 may yet be a worse year than 2020, or at least until the vaccine hits the world in massive volume - and that is assuming it is as effective against new variants, current (very early) views are it will be unaffected by this variant although urgent tests are happening at a military research centre.

Well I was hoping to see my 98 year old grandmother in about a month - haven't seen her all year. An outbreak in Sydney will probably put paid to that, I'd say. It's already "ruined" our Christmas, as my sister-in-law can't take the risk of travelling up from Melbourne and not being allowed back in without a lengthy hotel quarantine. So just the immediate fam for christmas - we'd hoped for a quiet one which we rarely get (last year we were in the middle of evacuating due to bushfires, and most other years have to be doing the bigger thing with my or my partner's family), but perhaps not this way.

Just hoping the state government's approach which has meant them asking people nicely to do things rather than mandating anything doesn't allow things to get out of hand.

This new variant is kicking our butts at the moment. The winter is tough on healthcare as it is and there are so many unknowns on this new strain yet there is still so much truculence on implementing another lockdown. It's times like this that bring out the Nihilist in me.

Covid has also come home to us personally; my daughter has to self-isolate after a rash of cases at school, although strangely not my son. Every year group has been affected by a positive test, some with multiple cases, but despite the kids mixing so heavily only selected 'close friends' are being asked to isolate. Because, you know, the virus cares deeply about Human relationships and doesn't just infect anybody I guess? Even so, half the faculty and about a fifth of the student population are on isolation now; the festive break is convenient but the problem isn't going to go away when school reconvenes. Meanwhile the government are threatening litigation on schools that choose to close or extend the holiday break while simultaneously blaming the rise of infections on people's silly behaviour and not their dumb-ass and confusing policies. Apparently being in possession of a till confers protection against transmission.

Regarding isolation, the rules are equally unclear. Only my daughter has to isolate but frankly if she has the virus then all of us one hundred per cent also have it so we are self-imposing isolation because we like to flatter ourselves as not being idiots. How do we shop for essentials if we can't/won't leave the house? Apparently we should just get things delivered which is ludicrous given that there hasn't exactly been a surfeit of available delivery slots for months now and we are going into the busiest shopping period of the year. So we are relying on the kindness of neighbours to drop off milk and bread on our doorstep for the next few days. Other people won't be so fortunate or will be slightly more obdurate.

Is anyone else thinking all this work-from-home is a double-edged sword? It's just showing all these companies exactly which jobs can be done from India.

I don't think so; companies already knew that!

hotseatgames wrote: I don't think so; companies already knew that!

Companies tried their damnedest to prove that around the turn of the century and got burnt pretty badly. I don't think they'll wander into it quite so quickly a second time.

That said, I work with a fair number of East Indians that are very good at their jobs. For all I know they're back in India already and just haven't told anyone.

ChristopherMD wrote: Is anyone else thinking all this work-from-home is a double-edged sword? It's just showing all these companies exactly which jobs can be done from India.

Less this, and more
- well, what do you mean you're not available, you're just at home, what's the different to one hour ago when you were working?
- you don't need break times, you are at home, you're basically just on break all day anyway.
- well you used to get up at 7 to make it into work by 9, can't you just keep getting up at 7 and start work when you are ready?
- oh wow, you're so PRODUCTIVE now - here's some more work.

Caught up with a former coworker recently. She sold her house in Seattle and is going to work remotely from AirBnBs all over the place for the next year starting after the holidays. Between her and her BF, they figure it’s cheaper than her mortgage and what he was paying in rent.

It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for big city rents and house prices if you could remotely work for them seamlessly from wherever you actually wanted to live. But my impression is that the remote work environment has still been somewhat inefficient for most companies so I don't see this happening en masse.