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Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

theatlantic.com

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Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#61

Post by adrianN »

eikenberry wrote: post #32
fiblye wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If work from home ends up really sticking around, I'm sure plenty of cost-cutting employers will expect everyone to buy their own computers, but expect employees to all install keyloggers and monitoring software in order to work. And people will accept it, because they'll be fired if they refuse and someone more desperate will deal with it so long as they get paid at some point.

And those employers will suffer for it by getting sub-standard employee as the competent ones will find jobs at places that don't play big brother. They could possibly get away with it by paying exceedingly well. But that would afford workarounds, like buying a work-only computer for the spyware to live on.

Maybe if you restrict yourself to programmers. Most office workers probably don't understand the implications of surveillance software and I doubt that many of them would go through the extra effort of using a separate computer.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#62

Post by arpa »

danieltillett wrote: post #41
daxfohl wrote: post #14

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual…

If only it were that simple. Coronavirus only induce a short lived immunity (40 weeks is the average). With the common cold varieties you basically catch the same virus over and over again as you don’t build up any long term immunity to them. The end result of all this is you would get sick and then be at risk of getting sick again next year and the year after that all the while putting at risk anyone who is vulnerab…

I don't think we have any data regarding immunity against this particular coronavirus. AFAIR, the nastier the virus, the longer immunity lasts, e.g. SARS, MERS immunity can last up to 3 years.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#63

Post by JackMorgan »

esyir wrote: post #57
Jaruzel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about choice . Employees should be able to work in the environment that is best for their well-being. Happier employees tends to result in increased productivity.

It's also about productivity. If the employee functions significantly worse in a remote position, then extending that to them is going to be often a poor decision.

I feel like I'm struggling with this now: I have fought for a long time to get my team to be fully remote. After a year of partial WFH, now we're doing it full time. However, several people on my team seem completely incapable of self-regulation unless someone is making them show up. They're up at 3am working, but clearly only getting done >5% of what they'd otherwise do. A few others are getting done at least 120% more. Seems like different strokes for different folks is the name of the game, and some people for whatever reason just aren't in a place in their lives where they are responsible enough to handle the greater freedom of remote work.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#64

Post by danieltillett »

arpa wrote: post #62
danieltillett wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only it were that simple. Coronavirus only induce a short lived immunity (40 weeks is the average). With the common cold varieties you basically catch the same virus over and over again as you don’t build up any long term immunity to them. The end result of all this is you would get sick and then be at risk of getting sick again next year and the year after that all the while putting at risk anyone who is vulnerab…

I don't think we have any data regarding immunity against this particular coronavirus. AFAIR, the nastier the virus, the longer immunity lasts, e.g. SARS, MERS immunity can last up to 3 years.

Yes we do (I have to dig out the reference), but it appears to be the same as other Coronaviruses.

You are right that the worse the infection the longer the immunity, but if we are looking at the young they have a mild disease so we should expect a short immune lifetime.

Edit. Have a look at Figure 3 of this pre-print[0]. This doesn’t encourage me that we can expect a long immune lifetime with SARS-CoV-2.

0. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20066407v...

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#65

Post by fragmede »

daxfohl wrote: post #14

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual…

The science is still out. We're not sure that specific individuals will develop an antibody response, though WHO will now go as far as to say "most" and "some level of protection"[0]. We're not sure being young and healthy is enough to guarantee that you won't die from it. We're not sure of the long-term effects of having caught it. Maybe it kills everyone 6 months later. Doubtful, but no one's been alive for 6 months after having caught it.

We still don't know enough about this thing, though we are learning more by the day.

As the magic 8 ball says: ask again tomorrow.

[0] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#66

Post by rimliu »

twunde wrote: post #26
SeeTheTruth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NO. You risk spreading it, young and healthy people are still dying or having severe outcomes - we still don't know enough to predict how it will go. And we still don't know if catching one strain once confers immunity, or for how long. So you won't be "done with it". If you do get sick you become a burden on an overloaded healthcare system. The people talking about this option are rightly being shut down.

To reiterate NO! Something that's not talked about enough is that the coronavirus is causing neurological issues[1]. The full effects aren't known, but examples of neurological diseases are MS, Parkinson's and cerebral palsy. That's not something to want to voluntarily get. oh, and that's not to mention that you're likely to get lung scarring or have a long-term cough[2]. The survivors will have major long-term compl…

These effects are not specific to COVID and are common with severe ilnesses caused by viruses.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#67

Post by rimliu »

fragmede wrote: post #65
daxfohl wrote: post #14

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual…

The science is still out. We're not sure that specific individuals will develop an antibody response, though WHO will now go as far as to say "most" and "some level of protection"[0]. We're not sure being young and healthy is enough to guarantee that you won't die from it. We're not sure of the long-term effects of having caught it. Maybe it kills everyone 6 months later. Doubtful, but no one's been alive for 6 month…

There is no guarantee that you won't die from the lighting strike. All the numbers show that risk for the young people is extremely low (though not zero), even lower than some other common ilnesses.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#68

Post by rimliu »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #22
daxfohl wrote: post #14

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual…

The problem with that is, as far as I know, that: - COVID puts even some of the young and healthy into the ICU - there are reports of serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases, so you might be immune until the next big pandemic but your lungs may be busted forever

I doubt there are any report of "serious long term damage even in mild/asymptomatic cases". First, because we simply do not have any data on long term effects for the simple reason that this thing is less than six months old. As for lung damage is it mostly caused by ventilation, not by disease itself. I doubt you get artificial lung ventilation if you got an asymptomatic case.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#69

Post by akhilcacharya »

fiblye wrote: post #6
tehjoker wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm concerned that if we go this route on a permanent basis without a more powerful labor movement, it'll mean that work and home will seamlessly merge. Employer surveillance will enter the home and corporate domination will seep into every pore of our existence... and that's for white collar workers.

If work from home ends up really sticking around, I'm sure plenty of cost-cutting employers will expect everyone to buy their own computers, but expect employees to all install keyloggers and monitoring software in order to work. And people will accept it, because they'll be fired if they refuse and someone more desperate will deal with it so long as they get paid at some point.

More likely that they'll just normalize RDP-ing into cloud desktops. I know someone that just joined my company that has to do this while his new work laptop ships.

Re: Shorten the Workweek to Reopen Safely

#70

Post by helen___keller »

daxfohl wrote: post #14

Anybody else feeling like if we're young and healthy we should actively try to contract this thing, self-isolate for a few weeks, and be done with it? It feels almost like this would be the most socially responsible thing to do: reduce the effective R0 and allow things to start getting back to normality. I'm the farthest thing from a "reopen" protester. But I can't help thinking that as a young and healthy individual…

Maybe it's possible that there could be a net positive from a coordinated and well-executed plan that follows this idea in an area with sufficient hospital resources to handle the small percentage of cases that end up severe. That said there are two reasons why this should not and will not happen:

1. Execution - it's not enough to tell the young and healthy "go get coughed on". Intentionally infecting a significant percentage of the population would almost certainly lead to an outbreak in the remaining population unless extreme care was taken. Keep in mind that a bunch of these young people won't have any symptoms at all- and we probably don't have the resources to test all these young people. The outcome would be too predictable- some young people would want to leave home after a week thinking they never got sick, and then would spread the disease to their community.

2. Politics and fairness - who are the ones most incentivized to be intentionally infected? Who are the ones most capable of declining this program and continuing to isolate at home for the next N months as needed?

Any politician who suggests this plan will be accused of sacrificing the poor and the blue collar, as they are the ones who can't just work remotely for the next year.

Personally, as a WFH-capable employee I would sit this out. Why should I go through this when I'm capable of effectively disappearing from society until the pandemic is over? I'm sure many other office workers agree.

Putting these two points together, this is neither something that we should encourage individuals to do of their own right (lest they fuck it up and hurt their community), nor something any politician would (probably) ever try to coordinate and execute at scale.

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