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Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

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Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#61

Post by Nextgrid »

cknoxrun wrote: post #10

My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months? We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and…

Business and money is one thing. Money comes and goes, for the most part. Employees, their health and relationship with your company are a whole different matter.

If you make everyone work from home, you'll end up with a temporary loss in productivity (thus money, which again comes and goes). Even if one of them does get infected anyway, they won't spread it to the rest of the team. The relationship with your employees is preserved because you're not forcing them to take risks.

If you force them to work in the office, it's just a matter of time before all of them get sick. The productivity will drop to zero, yet you'll still have to pay them sick leave and their opinion of your company will be tainted forever because you and your greed are the reason they are now all sick.

Not to mention, this is all assuming your employees are relatively young and have no pre-existing medical conditions that would make the infection life-threatening. Otherwise, we're not just talking about relationships but actual lives being put at risk.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#62

Post by mjoin »

tuna-piano wrote: post #44
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…

Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)

you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus, which caused it to spread. had they reacted immediately, we might be in a much better situation rn

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#63

Post by LeoNatan25 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #42
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #12

Here in Israel, ministry of health wanted a full lockdown. But business won, so only a partial lockdown is enforced, and they are shutting down only clubs and restaurants. People will still be able to visit parks, roam freely, etc. Today there was an article [1] that some idiot that was in quarantine left it and was arrested on the street. There is no discipline. A hard lockdown is likely the best option everywhere.…

> Today there was an article [1] that some idiot that was in quarantine left it and was arrested on the street. There is no discipline. Hopefully he/she was nabbed quickly, without spreading the disease to anyone else. Is Isreal using electronic tagging on those quarantined folks to ensure that they can't just leave their assigned place without anyone knowing about it?

They are starting to talk about it, but there are big privacy concerns of tracking citizens by intelligence agencies. Not sure what the status of this is, but will probably pass parliament because everyone is very scared. They can abolish it later, but we all know they probably won't.

It is unclear of the idiot that evaded quarantine is sick or only precautionary, but that's just the people we have—morons. Very different from Hong Kong and Singapore.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#64

Post by [deleted] »

lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…

[deleted]

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#65

Post by [deleted] »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #47
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…

You can’t fast track things past what they’ve already been fast tracked. Stop second guessing the experts. What is the use of a hurried vaccine tomorrow if next month it turns out to cause birth defects or global infertility or cancer.

[deleted]

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#66

Post by rimliu »

delegate wrote: post #46

I've seen comments here trying to play down the message or discredit the signatories of this letter. Don't. Please take it seriously. This is not sensationalism. What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down. I'm writing this from Barcelona, Spain. This last Sunday, 6 days ago, I went on a walk with my girlfriend, had a nice lunch, too…

We (Lithuania) are going into more or less total lockdown since coming midnight. With 8 active cases (first confirmed case recovered and was released home). I only wish government would be more aggressive with testing.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#67

Post by kyawzazaw »

cknoxrun wrote: post #45
jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? You should have implemented WoH weeks ago. Thinking whether or not doing it now is a disservice to all humanity and a testament of why we have reached this situation as a society.

The first case only just made its way to our city a couple of days ago. We have been rather distracted of course by getting signatures and cheques. For context, our schools and daycares are still open, as are city rec centers, gyms, and public transit. Only yesterday did the province recommend no gatherings over 250 people. Perhaps we should have been quicker, but here we are.

I am just super curious. Do your startup employees need physical infrastructure or deal with super confidential data that require them to be on site?

Do you not trust them the employees to work their part on their own?

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#68

Post by wnkrshm »

bsaul wrote: post #35
davidw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is 'confident' about a lot of things. But everyone who has seen what is happening in Italy is confident that taking a 'wait and see' attitude will cost lives.

i wish more countries did randomized testing over its whole population, or extensive testing, like SK.

Exactly. I don't see how trying to limit testing to people who had contact with known cases or traveled to at risk countries (as practiced in Germany) can be successful.

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#69

Post by [deleted] »

tuna-piano wrote: post #44
lbeltrame wrote: post #36

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…

Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)

[deleted]

Re: Open letter from Italy to the international scientific community

#70

Post by LeoNatan25 »

mjoin wrote: post #62
tuna-piano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)

you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus, which caused it to spread. had they reacted immediately, we might be in a much better situation rn

Yes, and so could many countries, including Italy. This is the deal we've been had, and need to look to the future.
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