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

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

#221

Post by elsonrodriguez »

gfodor wrote: post #51
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 "…

It’s not like they just decided - they did, they actually just decided. The change in cloth mask guidance proves it: no new data, we always knew they were ineffective.

There are a few cloth masks in this data set showing around 50% filtration of test particles smaller than Sars-Cov-2:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M0mdNLpTWEGcluK6hh5L...

N95s and similar are obviously better but cloth masks do ok. Also remember they changed guidance to recommend cloth+surgical masks, which everyone laughed at. Lo and behold that combination tests in the 80% filtration range.

So cloth masks work, the guidance for double masking was valid, and the N95 recommendations more valid still.

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

#222

Post by birken »

calculatte wrote: post #164
birken wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The PR Firm Impact Research sent a report to the Democrats on Feb 22, 2022 urging them to lift all restrictions & claim victory for political points. Immediately after, restrictions lifted. Do your own assessment of the facts. Leaked memo https://punchbowl.news/impact-covid-positioning-strategy-mem...

So you contend that "the Democrats" (who obviously are a fully united entity who never disagree) should have kept all the restrictions even though the Omicron wave is ending?

What should they have done?

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

#223

Post by fundad »

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 "…

It seems like a crucial thing to deal with surges is to dramatically increase hospital capacity. Making health care universal would fund it.

What blocks any expensive investments in US standard of living is the cost. The costs is so high, it's almost as much as the cost of inaction and that's too damn much.

See also climate change.

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

#224

Post by mikestew »

lokar wrote: post #90
endisneigh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTO should’ve begun the minute it was shown that vaccines stop deaths. given that you have to be vaccines to rto at Apple it didn’t really make sense to wait this long anyway

And do you have to RTO if you have an immunocompromised family member at home?

You should probably ask your employer rather than some random on the internet.

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

#225

Post by gdulli »

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 current case numbers come with a lower fatality rate so the same case numbers don't suggest the same level of action as before.

Also the context of the numbers matters. They're trending down now, not up, and the variant spikes are over. In the middle of delta/omicron we didn't know what was going to happen.

And yes, there's fatigue on everyone's part. The relative lower danger of omicron, plus being past the delta spike then the omicron spike, means we're just kind of collectively over it. Citizens have fatigue, they're just not built to stay on guard for a third year. Policy makers are fatigued, they can't force people to stay home for another year to save lives from covid just like they can't force people to stop driving to save lives from car crashes.

So admitting there's a political aspect is fine, but it's a lot more nuanced than the election cycle, which is a much more contrived explanation than everyone's response to a dramatic drop in the numbers.

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

#226

Post by jb1991 »

nightski wrote: post #115
jb1991 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stat has been widely reported, in the U.S. at least. There are more deaths from Covid occurring currently in the U.S. on an average daily basis that at any prior time in the pandemic. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/24/health/covid-deaths-now-y... NY Times, Washington Post, and other media have similar stories.

CNN is basically a tabloid at this point.

If you don't like the source, there are plenty of other sources saying the same thing.

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

#227

Post by dzhiurgis »

mdoms wrote: post #188
saturdaysaint wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of argument doesn't hold up to the slightest scrutiny. First of all, it's quite pedantic and naive to assume that governments and medical bodies in the richest and most advanced countries haven't worked through similar issues of causality with innumerable other diseases. More to the point, the peaks in COVID deaths magically align with proportionately large spikes in all cause mortality not seen in prior ye…

Here in New Zealand a gang member was shot to death and was recorded as a covid death because he tested positive posthumously. This is apparently in line with international practices. If you don't see the absurdity in that then I don't know what to say.

I assume it’s this story https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/11/11/new-lynn-shooting-victim-...

It’s not really true if you read further into it. Think about it - if you get nasty infection while under surgery - was cause of death surgery or infection.

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

#228

Post by Lascaille »

lokar wrote: post #154
Lascaille wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone survives. That's life. You can't expect society to shut down to protect the tiny percentage of people who can't be vaccinated or are immunocompromised. That's never been an expectation of society before so why would it be one now?

It has been. The reason these people survive is because vaccines are required for everyone as a child (in the US). Without that they would catch mumps, measles, polio, etc. And wearing a mask inside public spaces is not shutting down society.

>vaccines are required for everyone as a child (in the US)

Do continue please

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

#229

Post by endisneigh »

30367286 wrote: post #137
endisneigh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The death rate for covid is significant but not substantial enough in itself to cause the world to lock down. The points above though, are. For USA the death rate is still higher than times when we were not RTO.

The people dying of COVID and the people working from home are different cohorts. We have a vaccine, anti-virals, and natural immunity. Will the WFH cohort see an increase in deaths due to RTO? Certainly. We’ll also see more car accidents. The world has never been free of risk, and we are now emerging from the pandemic with a newly integrated risk model for this disease. It’s going to be touch and go for a while — ye…

> The people dying of COVID and the people working from home are different cohorts. We have a vaccine, anti-virals, and natural immunity

Well, yes. The people dying were always generally unvaccinated.

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

#230

Post by infamouscow »

gdulli wrote: post #83
xienze wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something substantial has definitely changed. Yeah, it's called midterm elections are coming up and the Democrats are staring down the barrel of getting absolutely crushed if they continue on with mask and vaccine mandate policies.

That's nonsense. Mandates are going away because (1) mid-January was the predictable post-holiday travel and gathering spike, (2) several weeks later the numbers were predictably down, and then (3) lawmakers needed several more weeks to feel safe enough about the trend to act on it. Lifting mandates now leaves enough time for another spike (followed by more restrictions) to arise before the elections. By your thinkin…

What peer-reviewed research is being used to inform policymakers on this recent shift? And I'm referring to COVID-19 reports, not political ones.
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