Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 573 posts

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#211

Post by majormajor »

newsbinator wrote: post #61
nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

I didn't use death rate for supporting closing and I won't use death rate for supporting opening. Covid's main threats for most people are: * Filling up hospitals to the point they stop functioning (that's been true here in Canada). * Putting 10% ~ 20% of workers everywhere, including hospitals, out of commission for weeks at a time while they're acutely sick with Covid or infectious to others. * Disabling some large…

> * Putting 10% ~ 20% of workers everywhere, including hospitals, out of commission for weeks at a time while they're acutely sick with Covid or infectious to others.

This one seems like a dubious point to me, services during the early-2020 lockdowns were much more impacted than they were during the Omicron spike which saw much less enforced lockdown but much more "shit, all our employees are sick" closures.

Completely agree with the hospitalization concerns, and I would add that the calculations also changed a lot re: protecting others after widespread vaccine availability.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#212

Post by tinus_hn »

briandear wrote: post #198
tinus_hn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look around the world, many countries are lifting all measures. And they definitely are not affected by US elections. They are affected by hospitalization, ICU and death numbers that are falling as infections are rising.

They are affected by their own elections though.

Everything is, that’s hardly a conspiracy.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#213

Post by majormajor »

colinplamondon wrote: post #72
WithinReason wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. There is a huge difference between "dying with COVID" and "dying from COVID".

That was true from the beginning. Legacy bureaucracies like the CDC are just recognizing what was clear in 2020.

It's quantitatively much different now.[0] There's been a crowd pushing the idea that the hospitalization numbers are highly misleading for two years now, and they're trying to claim that they were right all along based on numbers that are only happening after a year or vaccination campaigns and a less-lung-oriented strain emerging.

"About 7% of L.A. County’s total staffed ICU beds are taken up by COVID-19 patients, compared with 15% during the summer Delta wave and more than 50% last winter. "

"In early November — before Omicron swept around the world, and Delta was still dominant — 75% of coronavirus-positive patients countywide were in the hospital for COVID-related medical issues, Ferrer said.

By late December, the same was true for 45% of coronavirus-positive hospitalized patients, Ferrer estimated."

"During last winter’s COVID-19 surge, about 80% of coronavirus-positive patients in the emergency department at L.A. County-USC Medical Center were being admitted to the hospital, and nearly half of those went to the ICU, Spellberg said. Now, about a third of coronavirus-positive patients are admitted, and 20% to 25% are going to the ICU."

[0] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-07/fewer-co...

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#214

Post by twoheadedboy »

LightG wrote: post #76
dmitrygr wrote: post #14

An open season on Apple employees starts now. Recruiters, take notice...

You may be wrong. I'm staunch in favour of remote. I like it, it works. But I recognise the benefits of in-person. I would wager that what most people like me want is a bit of control of their schedule and to be able to work in a hybrid manner. The end. I know as that's what I was going to ask my boss, before he dragged us all back in to the office and stopped remote completely in Nov-21. Most of our team have left a…

Anyone who has moved or bought a house outside of commuting distance in the past 2 years is never going back. I know I'm not.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#215

Post by batekush »

thisiscorrect wrote: post #69
BrianOnHN wrote: post #20

Love that all the companies (see also Google, Twitter) are utilizing the WW3-panic to sweep these announcements under the rug. How thoughtful! And props to Apple for adding that Friday PR synergy to the mix! Edit: my best attempt at a good faith argument here is this: it was a move that was supposed to be in sync with Biden's SOFU comments on returning to the office, but other breaking news affected the plan.

It's interesting to consider the group psychology aspect. During the 2020 summer protests, many also said that the huge crowds were not spreading covid. Maybe this is similar. When there is a larger issue people are focusing on, concerns about covid get pushed to the backburner. The real test will come when the Ukraine-Russia war subsides.

large crowds of people who do not take covid seriously, who socially disincentivize transmission precautions (e.g. sturgis) seem to spread covid.

on the other hand, large crowds that do take covid seriously, and socially encourage those precautions, appear to not spread covid as much.

where's the group psychology aspect?

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#216

Post by JeremyNT »

nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

> Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "science" to support it.

Things trended well last summer, but 1) everybody expects a lull in warm weather and 2) vaccination numbers were still low. It was reasonable at the time to hold onto precautions hoping the unvaccinated people would come around before fall. And good thing too, because delta proved to be a real pickle before being displaced by omicron.

At some point, it becomes obvious that a large number of people just won't bother getting vaccinated, and you can't realistically keep asking the entire country to go out of their way to protect the people who won't protect themselves.

We'll see another wave in the fall, either omicron or some new variant, and hopefully our vaccines will stay ahead of it.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#217

Post by birken »

tharne wrote: post #202
birken wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for example, you consider the 3 Democratic Governors of California, Oregon and Washington ending their state's various mask mandates 4+ months after the VA election to be "eager to end COVID restrictions no matter what". Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?

> Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race? I don't. The case numbers in many, if not most areas, are still higher than they were during the delta wave in the Summer and Fall that led to the lockdowns and restrictions being implemented in the first place. If this were truly just about the data then you'd expect the restrictions to lift once the ca…

The peak of the delta wave was 160k cases/day, and the current case levels are ~52k/day. So given that, you think most areas are having higher case loads than the peak of the delta wave? You just aren't look at the data. There is also strong reason to believe that right after a huge wave is over you can expect a relatively smooth period of time to follow since so many people will have extra immunity from having recovered from covid.

The people making these decisions are not idiots, they can look at the data and make sane and rational predictions about what might happen in the future, and then adapt if necessary.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#218

Post by dpweb »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #68
nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

Politics plain and simple. COVID protocols are very unpopular at this point and not every effective. Florida and Texas are having big inflows, california and New York huge outflows. Whatever your viewpoint this is the fact politicians see. And yes taxes and cost of living are a huge driving force not only COVID, but as long as remote work goes on people will keep moving to low cost of living and low tax states.

People are leaving for FL and TX cause taxes you add in the salt deduction change its considerable. Have lived in FL TX and NY.

Add in weather and TX and FL are actually nice places to live for the most part.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#219

Post by xanaxagoras »

birken wrote: post #91
throwaway1777 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics plain and simple. COVID protocols are very unpopular at this point and not every effective. Florida and Texas are having big inflows, california and New York huge outflows. Whatever your viewpoint this is the fact politicians see. And yes taxes and cost of living are a huge driving force not only COVID, but as long as remote work goes on people will keep moving to low cost of living and low tax states.

You don't think the fact that this country just had the largest ever COVID wave (in terms of cases), which is in the process of ending, is at all related to the decisions? Also of the scant 40 million people remaining in California, who haven't yet moved to Texas or Florida, public support for at least some "COVID protocols" are very high [1]. I'm not sure you are giving an impartial assessment of the facts. 1: https…

I don't see that where I am. Most people have stopped wearing masks in public. 2 months ago everyone was wearing one.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#220

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

abledon wrote: post #111
tombert wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID made my situation worse at Apple. I worked in a satellite office (NYC), and while in the office, most folks in California were reluctant to schedule meetings later than ~2pm california time because they didn't want to keep people in the office late. When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week, I guess because the manager…

> b) there's no such thing as "my own time" with Apple, since I was salaried and well-compensated. Is there 1 FAANG company that is the most friendly/accomodating to someone who wants to develop their own software/indiegames on the side?

Not FAANG, but GitHub explicitly allows employees to work on side-projects while retaining the IP rights, and you get paid Microsoft stock.
Post reply on HN