Coronavirus Pandemic

[Rhythm]

Email has emerged of No.10 holding a "bring your own booze" party in the Downing Street garden, sent to about 100 people:

This was in May 2020. In the midst of the first lockdown, where restrictions were tightest and we were not supposed to meet anyone (but for one other person who could be admitted into your "bubble").

2 days before the Barnard Castle kerfuffle. Now becoming pretty clear why Cummings wasn't immediately ousted after that

[Ollie]

If we are moving into a post-Covid world, then be aware that that world ain't ever going back to how it was. Not entirely. Some things permanently changed.

Not in any ways that matter. We might have a plan for the next one, we might get jabs a bit more often, we might be a little more keen to stay off work when ill, we are all going to work from home a bit more. Nowt much else is going to change. And that's probably a good thing.

We won't have a plan for the next one until/unless we get a new government. We'll probably only be getting jabs regularly if we're over 50 (at least) or willing to pay for them. We might be more keen to stay off work when ill, but our employers probably aren't going to be any more keen to let us. Nor, for the most part, to let us work from home.

[PFVA]

I have my new digital certificate showing I had my booster dose.

Now I can go to football games and theatre plays without having to do a test before. Not that I'm planning to start going to football games, and theatre plays very rarely I attend.

Note: It says Moderna Spain. I don't know if the factory there or just the representation for Moderna for the peninsula.

[gilesgoat]

If we are moving into a post-Covid world, then be aware that that world ain't ever going back to how it was. Not entirely. Some things permanently changed.

Not in any ways that matter. We might have a plan for the next one, we might get jabs a bit more often, we might be a little more keen to stay off work when ill, we are all going to work from home a bit more. Nowt much else is going to change. And that's probably a good thing.

We won't have a plan for the next one until/unless we get a new government. We'll probably only be getting jabs regularly if we're over 50 (at least) or willing to pay for them. We might be more keen to stay off work when ill, but our employers probably aren't going to be any more keen to let us. Nor, for the most part, to let us work from home.

Mah in Italy the "work from home" seems to be "the new / one of the few good things that came with Covid" .. before that "the idea was unthinkable" .. now .. "it's a new reality" ..

Fact is, NOT all of them but MANY jobs "don't really need you in an office X" .. "they could be done from everywhere" ..

Some like it, some not but "it's a fact that did open a new reality" that wasn't considered at all before .. now it is !

[KlaxonCow]

We might be more keen to stay off work when ill, but our employers probably aren't going to be any more keen to let us. Nor, for the most part, to let us work from home.

Which is actually a dumb move on their part. But I agree with you that this is probably what's going to happen.

It's a dumb move because, you know, making someone come into work when they've got something contagious is just risking knocking out the rest of your workforce (and whilst Covid might now be moving out of the "threat" category, it's still an endemic disease that'll surge every so often - it'll fade into the background, but it won't ever disappear).

And it's a dumb move on the part of the employers, because you could save a fortune in office rents. Like, even if you retain an office, then you can have a smaller place and only, say, 50% of the workforce needs to actually be there at any one time. I'm sure "tradition" and face-to-face meeting will still win, but it's kind of dumb for businesses to rent large swathes of office space, simply to house people in cubicles. Then add on the commute time, add on the commute expenses, etc. when, like, during this "work from home" experiment that was forced on us, most companies - according to polling - didn't really see much, if any, dip in productivity.

It's a psychological thing, not a logical thing. Managers not knowing how to manage remotely and just want people back in the office, because they understand how that works. Folks imagining that people are slacking off - even though, you know, that polling of companies found that, generally, productivity was barely affected, if at all.

A significant proportion reported that productivity even went up - there is a thing with "work from home" that people might actually do more work than they do at the office. Partly to prove they're not slacking, partly because they gain an extra few hours from having no commute, partly because they just keep going to get a job done even when they would have "clocked off" at the office, partly because - at least for those with a proper office space - they might actually have far less distractions at home than at the office.

(And that relates to what I was saying before about "the 9am siren" and "the Protestant work ethic" and all that - people having a monochronic attitude to work and the clock on the wall - because, frankly, if your employees are delivering their work at the same level of productivity, then does it actually matter if they are or aren't at their desk at exactly 11:30? Indeed, a benefit of "work from home" is that people can do things like take an hour off to go to the shops or go pay their bills, and then simply work an extra hour in the evening to make up the difference.)

As long as you're getting results, it's the results that matter.

And businesses could be saving a fortune on unnecessary rent, employees could have way better work / life balance and, if productivity ain't really changed, then there's no logical reason for this. It's just psychological bullshittery.

But never underestimate psychological bullshittery, as I don't doubt you're right that they'll just force "back to normal", not because it makes sense, but just because they understand how that works. It's familiar. They comprehend it. That's "tradition" and they just want certainty back.

[Rhythm]

Mah in Italy the "work from home" seems to be "the new / one of the few good things that came with Covid" .. before that "the idea was unthinkable" .. now .. "it's a new reality" ..

Fact is, NOT all of them but MANY jobs "don't really need you in an office X" .. "they could be done from everywhere" ..

Some like it, some not but "it's a fact that did open a new reality" that wasn't considered at all before .. now it is !

I work for a large US insurance company and they're so happy with WFH that they've just sold off their headquarters and are looking to get rid of more of their office buildings.

Some of the Covid changes are here to stay, for sure

[KlaxonCow]

I work for a large US insurance company and they're so happy with WFH that they've just sold off their headquarters and are looking to get rid of more of their office buildings.

Some of the Covid changes are here to stay, for sure

Yeah, and that's what I was alluding to.

There are businesses out there who are very much taking advantage of not having to pay big rents on just housing people in cubicles unnecessarily.

And, well, we've talked about natural selection in terms of the virus, but let's remember that natural selection applies to anything that reproduces and is selected for. That there is "memetic evolution" as well as the genetic kind.

So, you know, if we pit the company that's given up the office (or, at least, greatly downsized the office - you could keep a small "base of operations" with meeting rooms and such, of course) and is saving a fortune on rents, yet is as productive as it's ever been, against the company that's staying "traditional" and paying a fortune in office space, simply to house people sitting in cubicles, who's going to have the bigger profits? Who's going to be more agile to changing circumstances? Who's going to be selected for?

It was forced on us. But the model proved itself. It absolutely can work - and where it does work, then it'll thrive. And it provides a competitive advantage.

No, I'm not expecting some magical revolution of things. But some tectonic plates shifted underneath us, and some of these changes will prove permanent.

[Dio]

If we are moving into a post-Covid world, then be aware that that world ain't ever going back to how it was. Not entirely. Some things permanently changed.

Not in any ways that matter. We might have a plan for the next one, we might get jabs a bit more often, we might be a little more keen to stay off work when ill, we are all going to work from home a bit more. Nowt much else is going to change. And that's probably a good thing.

We won't have a plan for the next one until/unless we get a new government. We'll probably only be getting jabs regularly if we're over 50 (at least) or willing to pay for them. We might be more keen to stay off work when ill, but our employers probably aren't going to be any more keen to let us. Nor, for the most part, to let us work from home.

Which was kind of my point. Even the very mild list of things I wrote down there I qualified with 'might' on all of them.

[skab]

Thanks. You just gave me eye cancer.

[tufty]

If Boris' bedroom looks like that, it's hardly surprising he spends so much time in other peoples'.

[gilesgoat]

If Boris' bedroom looks like that, it's hardly surprising he spends so much time in other peoples'.

Saddam Hussein had better taste ... .. do you remember what they found in his bedroom ? .. ( I do ) ...

Spoiler: show

For those that cannot remember it was "a famous furry painting" by Rowena Morrill ...

[merman]

9% of people eligible for a first dose of vaccine still haven’t had it.

No way are we getting to full immunity.

[The ghost of raids past]

Those people should face mandatory vaccination at their home address unless they can produce a Medical exemption signed by a legitimate Doctor

[Dio]

9% of people eligible for a first dose of vaccine still haven’t had it.

No way are we getting to full immunity.

The disease is a highly effective vaccine, right? The number of unvaccinated people who haven't had covid yet is probably down under couple of percent. If it wasn't, the hospital situation would have been dire at 50k cases a week (as it was in January 2021), not still been coping at 300k+.

We hit effectively full immunity at some point between end Jan and the start of the summer. Probably earlier rather than later.

[rowan]

The disease is a highly effective vaccine, right? The number of unvaccinated people who haven't had covid yet is probably down under couple of percent. If it wasn't, the hospital situation would have been dire at 50k cases a week (as it was in January 2021), not still been coping at 300k+.

We hit effectively full immunity at some point between end Jan and the start of the summer. Probably earlier rather than later.

Yeah, surviving covid infection gives way better + longer protection than the vaccines from what [little] I gather.

When I was last talking to my mate down in London I asked what he reckoned was the reason behind the pre-Omicron case rates being consistently lower there than elsewhere.
And he could only guess at higher immunity through so many people catching it in the first waves as the vaccination rate is also way down compared to rest of UK.