Coronavirus

[rodinuk]

I’m living the same life I did prior to lockdown, I only wear a mask when I am shopping and I probably won’t even need a booster. In England there is no longer a lockdown either so I am free to come and go. That’s more than halfway normal.

Well thanks to the emergence of Omicron I did need a booster!

[chi73inla]

I picked up a couple of girls over the last few weeks and serviced them in my car. I also went to the Frat House. Otherwise, I live in total isolation. I'm double boosted but have a weakened immune system. I ended up the Delta variant and needed an antibody infusion. It is the price you pay when you need uncut Latina cock.

[broncofan]

I picked up a couple of girls over the last few weeks and serviced them in my car. I also went to the Frat House. Otherwise, I live in total isolation. I'm double boosted but have a weakened immune system. I ended up the Delta variant and needed an antibody infusion. It is the price you pay when you need uncut Latina cock.

I'm not judging but am just curious about your situation (if you don't want to share just ignore I won't take it personally). You say you're double boosted. Does that mean four shots total? It is surprising your breakthrough was delta but if as you say you have a weakened immune system maybe you just never had an immune response to the shots.

Did you ever get blood tests for antibodies after your shots? Again, just curious. I have a friend who got an organ transplant which means he's on immunosuppressants for life and he developed antibodies after his third shot but of course everyone's different.

They are still using monoclonal antibodies for delta variant so it's good in your situation you got an infusion. Are you feeling better?

[morim]

Corona Virus is nothing else that the usual flu virus that every year strike human beeings.
Authorities are building something strange on it

[Fitzcarraldo]

Corona Virus is nothing else that the usual flu virus that every year strike human beeings.
Authorities are building something strange on it

Man, your misinformation is 2 years out of date.

[Stavros]

The broad assumption is that Omicron marks a decline in the virulence of the Corona virus and thus a sufficient decline for our countries to ‘return to normal’. Does that mean the commute will end and workers resume their daily routine, or mix going into the office with working from home?

Here in Germany, other than a supermarket, I cannot enter a public building without showing my Covid Pass and ID, which is my passport. My Covid Pass is the evidence of my vaccinations embedded in three QR patches which are on my smartphone via the NHS App, and which assistants read at the door either by plain sight, or using a QR reader. In addition, I have had to have ‘schnelltests’ to enter theatres which either provide the free service or recommend a nearby pharmacy or test centre these being numerous and ubiquitous.

Face masks must often be worn when walking in pedestrianised streets, and in one restaurant we went to my companion was asked to replace her designer-chic cloth facemask for an N95 or Particle Filtering mask marketed here as YX152 or FFP2 NR. I always carry a spare so we were able to have lunch.

As a result I feel safer here than in the UK with its indifference to strict rules and the institutionalised selfishness that causes more problems than it solves. But return I must, without changing my behaviour, risk-averse, and I hope, secure.

I hope all of you will purchase N95 or similar masks, and limit your activities until the worst of this present phase is over.

[blackchubby38]

The broad assumption is that Omicron marks a decline in the virulence of the Corona virus and thus a sufficient decline for our countries to ‘return to normal’. Does that mean the commute will end and workers resume their daily routine, or mix going into the office with working from home?

When the “powers that be” decide that this pandemic is over and things go back to normal (when I say normal, I mean what the world was like in January 2020), I think there must be a sit down between cities, corporations, and their respective workers about remote working. Here in NYC, the new mayor is using the bully pulpit to go after financial institutions for letting their employees return to working remotely during this latest surge. Something municipal and other city employees (myself included but I will get back to that later) have not been able to do.

I understand what he is saying about the impact that empty office buildings have on the economic ecosystem. But I hate to break it to him, the damage has already been done. Many of the places that went out of business because of lockdowns are not coming back and trying to guilt people into help save the remaining ones isn’t fair. Especially since if people are going to have the option to work from home, they are going to do so.

Before I switched jobs and started working at one of the city hospitals, the private one that I worked for allowed us to work from home 3 days a week. This was even before the pandemic. From my understanding, the only reason it was not fulltime was because the higher ups were not in favor of it. I can only imagine how it was in the corporate world pre-2020. In essence, I think if most companies hadn’t been forced into letting their employees work from home fulltime because of the pandemic, its something they wouldn’t had offered in the first place.

When I left the private hospital in January 2021, upper management had extended fulltime working from home until March. Although we had the option of going into the office if we wanted to. I am not sure what it is like now.

As for my current situation, employees are allowed to work from home with the approval of the director of the individual department. I have been working at my present job for a year and I am still waiting to get that option. But for personal reasons, I also have not been in a rush to bring it up yet. I will add that My union is working to get a NYC Teleworking Expansion act passed through the state legislature.

I think going forward, employers should develop a hybrid working from home option. I think asking their employees to come into the office 2-3 days a week is fair. At the same time, it helps sustain areas whose main source of revenue comes from office workers.

[Stavros]

Blackchubby I appreciate your thoughts on this, and I do think the mix of office/home will become standard. I am retired now, but in my last job I would not have liked working from home, as I tend to lose focus there, did not have access to the documents I needed to work on, and prefer the spatial separation, but it might not suit everyone.

The issue of taking work home is I think a separate one as it amounts to people working for free and for that matter using their own resources- gas and electricity for example- the Company is not paying for. This may become an issue with home working in the future as well as issues such as - whose computer is being used? Should there be a separate internet connection for work rather than personal use?

When I first worked in the City of London there were a lot of sandwich bars and cafes but not on the scale that evolved after I left, so I think while some businesses will fold- indeed, have already done so- it will be an adjustment. The biggest threat remains the long term impact of Brexit, indeed, Covid-19 has done Boris Johnson a favour by shielding him from the failures of his policy, though he has suffered for other reasons, being unfit to hold public office, but that is for another thread.

A small question- do you travel outside New York? I had not travelled anywhere since the outbreak until arriving in Germany last month, but did so knowing the Germans have strict rules, that I had the right paperwork. If I were in the US, I would not be going anywhere.

[filghy2]

The broad assumption is that Omicron marks a decline in the virulence of the Corona virus and thus a sufficient decline for our countries to ‘return to normal’. Does that mean the commute will end and workers resume their daily routine, or mix going into the office with working from home?

Things won't really return to normal until the virus becomes endemic, which means there is a reasonably stable rate of infections at a level that the health system can manage comfortably. We clearly are not there yet with omicron, because even though it's apparently less dangerous that may be offset by the sheer numbers of infections.

Even when this happens, some things won't return to the pre-pandemic normal. I'm sure there will be a permanent shift to remote working, now people have realised it can work. They may also be more mask-wearing on public transport etc, as occurred in Asian countries even before the pandemic.

[filghy2]

I understand what he is saying about the impact that empty office buildings have on the economic ecosystem. But I hate to break it to him, the damage has already been done. Many of the places that went out of business because of lockdowns are not coming back and trying to guilt people into help save the remaining ones isn’t fair. Especially since if people are going to have the option to work from home, they are going to do so.

An economic system that requires masses of people to waste lots of their own time commuting is inefficient anyway. I think the only reason it lasted this long is inertia and the fact that the costs are borne by employees rather than employers. If employers had to pay for commuting time the system would have changed well before now.

It's unfortunate that CBD businesses will struggle, but that's what happens whenever the economy changes. It would make no more sense to try to stop this than it would have done to stop economic activity moving from the country to the city after the industrial revolution.