Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[james_s]

"As soon as" is not going to be any time soon though. I think those folks will have job for a good year.

And then what?

I'd bet that things will start to relax in some areas within the next month or so, for the total threat to go away it will be longer but if we stay in lockdown like this for most of the year we are screwed either way.

[EEVblog]

A booming trade seems to be security. The local Coles supermarket has no less than three full time security guards controlling flow.

That is very much temporary though. As soon as the threat of the virus passes all that security will dry up and there will still be huge numbers of unemployed.

"As soon as" is not going to be any time soon though. I think those folks will have job for a good year.

We are on the verge of easing restrictions here.
They will likely stage restrictions, but even then conflicts will remains. For example, if you re-open shops and restaurants then that also forces them to remove the two persons congregating in public rule etc.
But yeah, they have said "social distancing" is likely to remain for the rest of the year. But then how do the handle say restaurants and movie theaters? Do you only allows two people per seat/table separated by X distance. What about food court chairs?
It starts getting ridiculous very fast, and we have already had many examples of police abusing their powers for stupid simple things. They can't keep this up for another year, people will just start to ignore any rules eventually. At the moment it's this novel thing (I'm here are week!), give give it another few months and people will be really sick and tired of it all and will get back to their lives regardless of any laws.

[mansaxel]

give give it another few months and people will be really sick and tired of it all and will get back to their lives regardless of any laws.

Hopefully this will coincide with reasonable population immunity, so that the cases still to happen are few enough to handle. If you let go too quickly  there will be a second surge of cases. 

This of course also must be regarded in proportion to lockdown severity level because a very tight lockdown will both cause the care resources to not have to ramp up so much and fuel the desire to get society going again by opening up.  Those two conditions combined will stimulate that second wave if poorly managed.  Sort of a damped (but hopefully unsustainable) self-oscillation.

I'm betting on that this (slow, paced return whether by exhaustion or scaling back of restrictions) is what people setting the regulations are aiming for.

[EEVblog]

give give it another few months and people will be really sick and tired of it all and will get back to their lives regardless of any laws.

Hopefully this will coincide with reasonable population immunity, so that the cases still to happen are few enough to handle. If you let go too quickly  there will be a second surge of cases. 

I think there will be a 2nd surge of cases regardless.
The problem is you can't just stop almost the entire society for a year or something, the old "the cure is worse than the disease" thing.
This quarantine has been great for several reasons (apart from the obvious downsides of course):
1) Helped limit the cases to give us time to cope and learn and research the whole thing.
2) Scared the shit out of people and instilled a new culture of hygiene and consciousness of how these things spread.
3) Open up new avenues and a "new normal" for work from home and other scemes.

So any 2nd surge of cases (it's coming on winter here) should not need the same level draconian and quite frankly erosion of rights and freedoms.
IMO more priority for any 2nd round should be better isolation of the vulnerable. i.e. I'd rather see the cops currently ticketing people just sitting isolated in a park, to guarding and restricting access to retirement homes.

This of course also must be regarded in proportion to lockdown severity level because a very tight lockdown will both cause the care resources to not have to ramp up so much and fuel the desire to get society going again by opening up.  Those two conditions combined will stimulate that second wave if poorly managed.  Sort of a damped (but hopefully unsustainable) self-oscillation.

I can't see it not being a damped response. There are likely already less dangerous asymptomatic variants of the virus going around. Viruses evolve quickly. i.e. a huge number of people seem to be showing no symptoms at all, and this hopefully lends itself to the spread of a less dangerous variant. Although it's hard to get good numbers on that unless you test absolutely everyone.

I'm betting on that this (slow, paced return whether by exhaustion or scaling back of restrictions) is what people setting the regulations are aiming for.

Here in oz they have already publicly stated that is the case.

[EEVblog]

I'd bet that things will start to relax in some areas within the next month or so, for the total threat to go away it will be longer but if we stay in lockdown like this for most of the year we are screwed either way.

At some point very shortly this turns into a global depression instead of global recession, and that by itself kills huge numbers of people, potentially more than the virus.
You can't just money print your way out of that either, that'll just prolong the depression.
So it's a fine line that must be towed her. We had our dumb arse NSW Premier come and and state that they won't be releasing social distancing rules "until a vaccine is found". The entire country laughed at her ignorance.
I fear the problem might be the lack of guts on the part of some politicians to ease restrictions, because that's putting your political arse on the line, and that's not something politicians do.

[bd139]

Yep. Spock had it right...



We're just queuing up to burn 99% of the population instead of 1% at the moment. Doesn't seem justifiable. But that's what happens when the media deals in body counts.

[nctnico]

I'd bet that things will start to relax in some areas within the next month or so, for the total threat to go away it will be longer but if we stay in lockdown like this for most of the year we are screwed either way.

So it's a fine line that must be towed her. We had our dumb arse NSW Premier come and and state that they won't be releasing social distancing rules "until a vaccine is found". The entire country laughed at her ignorance.

Actually keeping the social distancing up until there is a vaccine (or even better: a remedy against people's lungs filling up with fluid) is a very good idea. Most of the world is going to do just that. I don't see what is funny about it. If you look at the graphs from the experts you can see getting rid of Covid19 is a long term process. In the order of 1 or 2 years.

What is happening right now is getting shops and factories modified so people can work and keep a distance at the same time. Together with rigorous testing and tracking apps that should be enough to control the outbreak while returning to a business as usual situation. But likely ther advice to work from home as much as possible is going to stand until next year.

[bd139]

I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet. We don't have accurate health outcome statistics (it has turned into a political shit show) or accurate testing available. Now we get to the plateau of deaths and then the question is: now what? There is actually no way to prove causality between the lockdown and the outcome. For all we know the disease itself may have burned out and we were all quietly infected and we're doing something counterintuitive. No tests, no way of knowing. But the body count vs admission count is pretty high still, which is a statistically useless figure for overall impact analysis. All it does is drive headlines and healthcare capacity (the latter of which was reduced massively by politicians!)

We've already shut down half the health services here so there are going to be secondary outcomes. Mental health (lots of suicides already), routine procedures missing and health outcomes escalated, abuse and rising crime from the desperation of those furloughed and fired. Not to mention economic ruin.

At some point, we cross a line between killing 50,000 here now and 100,000 in the next 10 years. Informal stats put the austerity death toll at around 130,000 here already and that is nothing compared to the next decade of hell we're going to get from this.

[nctnico]

I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet. We don't have accurate health outcome statistics (it has turned into a political shit show) or accurate testing available. Now we get to the plateau of deaths and then the question is: now what? There is actually no way to prove causality between the lockdown and the outcome.

You are wrong here. There is lots of data and virologists use advanced models (which include virus mutation, seasonal influences, mortality, etc, etc) to create reasonably accurate best and worst case predictions of how an outbreak progresses. Just be patient. Lock down is only phase 1 which won't be in effect very long.

[paulca]

I have been working from home partially since the beginning of March, full time since the middle of March.  Had the last week off though.  I like my home office. 

6 feet of monitors.  2x34" 21:9 UltraWides gives me plenty of neck exercise!  Top of the range PC (as of April 2018), better equipment than in work where I have an i5 laptop and two normal monitors.


Our CEO did conference calls for each team a few weeks back.  Company is still looking good.  We do a lot of software for "capital markets", ie. banks and trading companies.  Most of our business (in our department) is remote anyway.

So while bonuses and pay rises have been deferred to October and the CEO himself has dropped his salary to £1 per month, it's still mostly ticking along.

He did mention that they were mid planning the "2.0" for the company direction and the fact the company is still thriving while the building is completely closed down has made them change their minds on a lot of things.

A lot of companies who found this new working harder will struggle to adapt, but we already have the skills to do so.

Personally though, it's pretty hard.  I have been suffering from depression for years and progressively climbing further and further under my rock with work being my only social interaction on an average week.  While I don't mind my own company, doing this for 4 weeks straight now is difficult and I have had to be strict with myself to not turn to alcohol or worse.  Trying to force myself to get up and do things, even on my week off.  I'm looking forward to starting back to even remote working after a week off now.

My daughter is allowed to visit which helps.  It's been the first few times she has been left with me alone, think that means I am actually an adult now?  Nah.  Silly thoughts.

Stay safe everyone and as we have all been hit hard by this, lets just take the recession on the chin and NO MORE BAIL OUTS!  Let them fail.  Let them die.  If their services are really requried business will spring back and boom anew.  New companies will be born to replace those that died.  This is perfectly natural and a good way to get rid of those "too big to fail" monsters that hold us all to randsom while paying multi-million salarys and bonuses.

[EEVblog]

What is happening right now is getting shops and factories modified so people can work and keep a distance at the same time. Together with rigorous testing and tracking apps that should be enough to control the outbreak while returning to a business as usual situation.

It is not "business as usual" for countless businesses if you can't fill movie theaters and restaurants and food courts etc as you did before.

But likely ther advice to work from home as much as possible is going to stand until next year.

Yep, very likely, and I suspect there will be many business that go "Gee, my business is still running with people working from home. So why am I renting all this office space?" Smart businesses will review the way they have employees work.

[EEVblog]

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

One of the data problems is how deaths are reported. So many countries seemingly openly admitting that people are counted regardless of whether it actually caused their death or not.
And accuracy here is important because it sets the zestiest in the public mind of how dangerous this is compared with others seasonal flu's. That then permeates through society and ultimately impacts government policy.

[paulca]

Yep, very likely, and I suspect there will be many business that go "Gee, my business is still running with people working from home. So why am I renting all this office space?" Smart businesses will review the way they have employees work.

Our CEO said much the same thing.  Also a few of our big customers, particularly civil service and government had been saying, "You CAN'T possibly work from home or your own office, we want your staff here dammit!"... well they changed their tone quickly and all those barriers came crashing down.

[paulca]

And accuracy here is important because it sets the zestiest in the public mind of how dangerous this is compared with others seasonal flu's. That then permeates through society and ultimately impacts government policy.

The data is not fit for purpose if you want to answer those questions.  The UK for example is still only testing those who get admitted to a ward and have to be tested so they know which ward.  So the current death rate for covid-19 positives on the UK data is massive.  Like 30%!  Nobody, understandably, seems that bothered with tracking recoveries either.

The UK has started to test medical staff finally.  This has revealed a few shocks with 50% of one particular A&E (emergency room) staff testing positive.

[bd139]

I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet. We don't have accurate health outcome statistics (it has turned into a political shit show) or accurate testing available. Now we get to the plateau of deaths and then the question is: now what? There is actually no way to prove causality between the lockdown and the outcome.

You are wrong here. There is lots of data and virologists use advanced models (which include virus mutation, seasonal influences, mortality, etc, etc) to create reasonably accurate best and worst case predictions of how an outbreak progresses. Just be patient. Lock down is only phase 1 which won't be in effect very long.

I suggest you look deeply into the models used here. Our modelling is actually based on one guy who uses a fully undocumented computer model and refuses to explain it to anyone because he's too busy. No shit. Go do some research. It's a proper shit show.

[bd139]

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

One of the data problems is how deaths are reported. So many countries seemingly openly admitting that people are counted regardless of whether it actually caused their death or not.
And accuracy here is important because it sets the zestiest in the public mind of how dangerous this is compared with others seasonal flu's. That then permeates through society and ultimately impacts government policy.

Indeed.

I'll cut and paste the problems we have here from another post


I think we need to look at it rationally at the moment. The statistics we are recording here are absolutely not meaningful or useful as they stand and serve only to make the situation sound worse than it currently is. This is being leveraged by the press somewhat and the governments and being relatively poorly extrapolated by our universities into a set of wild assumptions. Granted wild assumptions are the only places we go but presenting them as fact and policy is somewhat disingenuous. Some problems with our recording:

1. We have no antibody tests that are viable therefore we don't have any "numerator" for the total deaths per infection.
2. We're not recording people who left hospital after recovery believe it or not.
3. We're not even recording the actual health outcomes, just the deaths. Not everything kills you even if it messes you up badly.
4. The recording method they use doesn't actually have a causal relation to the mortality as such. If someone comes in after crashing a motorbike, tests positive for covid-19 even if asymptomatic or if the test is contaminated (a big problem apparently!) then they get lumped in with the death statistics.
5. A lot of the statistical outliers are actually reported heavily on such as younger deaths. These are sad but inevitable. My nephew died from the flu a few years back as an example much to the surprise of everyone who wrote it off as "just flu".
6. The current infection testing is a snapshot of the status quo.
7. Some of the mortality risks are amplified by our handling of it and outcome of "viral load" which overwhelms the immune system.

Alas we have no idea what the outcome is going to be and the data we have is mostly trash. We are unfortunately a reactionary experiment at the moment and there's no exit plan other than "now what?" really. We are 12 months off on a vaccination and we don't know what the mortality statistics are, we have no viable testing and damage to society from the side effects from the reaction may outnumber the immediate deaths over a decade span. I suspect the "now what?" is we either burn everyone or some of us and let it run.

But, so far, all risks adjusted against what data we have, the mortality risk is literally just doubling your base line chance of dropping dead at the age you are. Still not desirable but at the end of the day considerably better than the statistics may suggest. But it's stil a shit show. If we have 10x the deaths we have now, which would be ugly, that still only represents a death rate of 0.79% as an end game. We lose 0.91% of our population every year at the moment as well from normal death as a comparison. 10% I doubt it will be.

[EEVblog]

Actually keeping the social distancing up until there is a vaccine (or even better: a remedy against people's lungs filling up with fluid) is a very good idea. Most of the world is going to do just that. I don't see what is funny about it.

It's funny because here the police have said these extreme social distancing enforcement powers will not extend beyond 90 days. Yet the NSW premier says they will remain in force "until a vaccine is found".
We aren't talking about voluntary schemes here, we are talking about the current draconian measures were police are fining people for just sitting isolated in a park or in their car, and you aren't allowed to leave your house without a "valid reason".
You can't spend another year or two enforcing such draconian laws, that would be beyond ridiculous. And even if restrictions are eased, the social distancing thing will become all but a joke because it's not compatible with getting businesses back and running.
Take gyms as but one example, are they going to have to force people to use every 2nd machine for the next couple of years? What about group classes? Do you limit the numbers to a quarter and everyone spaces out in the same sweaty room for an hour. Yet the human petri dishes that kids are are allowed back to school to mingle every day 5 days a week?
What about churches and other places were people congregate?
At some point it just gets silly trying to enforce any social distances laws. Sure you can advice to limit where possible, but it enforce it as law will become pointless.

[EEVblog]

He did mention that they were mid planning the "2.0" for the company direction and the fact the company is still thriving while the building is completely closed down has made them change their minds on a lot of things.

Yep, this will be the start of countless companies like this re-evaluating their needs.
This could even likely impact commercial realestate as companies down-size offices in the next few years.

[paulca]

Actually, right now the recovery data for the UK is saying "N/A", which removes the chart showing recoveries versus fatalities.  Which was horrible to look at if you didn't realise the data is skewed.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

[nctnico]

What is happening right now is getting shops and factories modified so people can work and keep a distance at the same time. Together with rigorous testing and tracking apps that should be enough to control the outbreak while returning to a business as usual situation.

It is not "business as usual" for countless businesses if you can't fill movie theaters and restaurants and food courts etc as you did before.

Not unless people get creative. For example: going to a restaurant at different times so there isn't a single peak. Same for movie theaters. If you go to a movie a couple of weeks after it has been released you have the entire theatre for yourself. I don't have the exact numbers but it wouldn't surprise me that by spreading the people over a longer period movie theatres can still get a similar revenue on average. With people working from home and not being tied to office hours this could work well.

But likely ther advice to work from home as much as possible is going to stand until next year.

Yep, very likely, and I suspect there will be many business that go "Gee, my business is still running with people working from home. So why am I renting all this office space?" Smart businesses will review the way they have employees work.

Yeah. I already told my youngest son -as a joke- that 'his' school has rented the building to shelter refugees.  For sure the last people opposed to working from home are getting shock treatment right now.

[PlainName]

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

Doesn't one hope for the best but plan for the worst?

[bd139]

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

Doesn't one hope for the best but plan for the worst?

Yes. But that depends mostly on the definition of worst which is not necessarily the immediate body count.

[nctnico]

Actually keeping the social distancing up until there is a vaccine (or even better: a remedy against people's lungs filling up with fluid) is a very good idea. Most of the world is going to do just that. I don't see what is funny about it.

It's funny because here the police have said these extreme social distancing enforcement powers will not extend beyond 90 days. Yet the NSW premier says they will remain in force "until a vaccine is found".
We aren't talking about voluntary schemes here, we are talking about the current draconian measures were police are fining people for just sitting isolated in a park or in their car, and you aren't allowed to leave your house without a "valid reason".

What about churches and other places were people congregate?
At some point it just gets silly trying to enforce any social distances laws. Sure you can advice to limit where possible, but it enforce it as law will become pointless.

Well, laws need to be a bit flexible. Over here everyone is allowed to go where they want (the border between NL and Germany isn't closed for example) but the police is actively checking whether people don't gather in groups (3 is a crowd) and keep their distance. Popular places (like parks) get closed down if necessary. This works well without turning the country into a police state. The NL government calls it an 'intelligent lockdown'. In general people seem to adhere to the rules so managing those that don't is doable.

Churches and gyms can also spread people over the day. Modern technology like apps can help to allow people to plan a visit.

However the people depending on tourism are going to be hit hard. I don't see a way around that especially in places where they have to rely on foreigners.

[paulca]

The thing that gets me is there isn't enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

Doesn't one hope for the best but plan for the worst?

There will be movies, documentaries, millions of YT videos, academic articles, pop songs, books, old wives tales and folklore for a century to come... that's even something worse happens next year.

[PlainName]

But that depends mostly on the definition of worst which is not necessarily the immediate body count.

It's a Y2K thing again. Beat it with decisive and robust action and everyone questions what the issue was. Could be worth reading this article from The Grauniad, which notes that we in the UK are now suffering what we saw as horrific over in Italy and Spain because we didn't act soon enough in a robust enough way. The problem here is that we can't hold back and see what it's going to do because by the time that's apparent it's too late to do anything about it. It's not a question of is the cure worse than the disease, it's a question of how much we want to bet on an unknown risk level. And we are playing with people's lives, not money or fame or anything.

Intellectually a few hundred thousand dead isn't that big of a deal when you look at the world population (although that's now, with everyone scared shitless enough to take precautions - what would it be if we weren't?). But this is what separates us from animals, isn't it? That we value someone's life more than anything else. Even those old folks who have lost their minds and don't know what's going on, who have serious underlying issues as well, we take care of them and let them die in dignity when, intellectually and monetarily, it would surely be better to off them as soon as they become a net resource sink.