Coronavirus in Massachusetts (negotiate, daily, department)

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

I don’t get why people find this hard to understand. To avoid a pandemic, we need to adopt behaviors to keep the transmission rate below 1.0. We don’t have herd immunity. If you put 37,000 people in Fenway Park every night, fill the movie theaters, stage huge concerts, fill churches, and all the other large gatherings, the transmission rate shoots to well beyond 1.0. The hospitals overflow. We kill off a significant fraction of vulnerable people. If you crash your car and are seriously injured, you die because the hospital is full of people with severe pneumonia.

There’s a middle ground where people can change their behavior to keep the transmission rate low and open most things back up. Are you washing your hands frequently? Are you avoiding physical contact with people? Are you wearing a mask in congested areas? If everyone does that, we can turn most things that aren’t large group events back on.

Yep, well said.

[BostonMike7]

Not only that, but being stuck in the house while it's snowing and/or 10 degrees outside. At least now, the weather was decent enough that people could get outside and enjoy it. If we are back in self-isolation for Dec, that will be really miserable.



Just found out this AM that an acquaintance just got off a ventilator yesterday after being on one for 2 weeks with Covid. 25 years old, healthy, no issues. Total surprise to all that he had such issues with the disease. Still recovering.

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by mdovell

A second wave I think might not be as bad but will feel worse due to the winter. Imagine having it and you can't travel. Not seeing relatives and friends. Isolation during the holidays will be horrible

A 2nd wave has been hypothesized and seems quite plausible based on past pandemics. However a 2nd wave is not a fait accompli. Even is it does occur, there is no evidence or data that supports this virus having a seasonal component at this point.

Originally Posted by BostonMike7

Just found out this AM that an acquaintance just got off a ventilator yesterday after being on one for 2 weeks with Covid. 25 years old, healthy, no issues. Total surprise to all that he had such issues with the disease.

I know this comparison has become a flash point, however if your acquaintance truly has no comorbidities for COVID-19, the odds of them becoming that ill is truly on par with a healthy 25 year old getting severe complications due to influenza. That is terrible luck and I'm glad to hear they are on the road to recovery.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

I know this comparison has become a flash point, however if your acquaintance truly has no comorbidities for COVID-19, the odds of them becoming that ill is truly on par with a healthy 25 year old getting severe complications due to influenza. That is terrible luck and I'm glad to hear they are on the road to recovery.

They claim none, but then again I am not privy to their full medical history so I can only go with what I am told.

But yes, given the odds of suffering severe complications at a younger age are so low, it really is bad luck.


That makes 6 people I personally know that have come down with Covid. 1 death, 2 in ICU, 3 mild.

[GeoffD]

A second wave is manageable if we put the process in place to handle the most vulnerable people. This disease fortunately doesn’t kill off very many young, healthy people. We need a nursing home process that is tightly audited. Good PPE for all staff and instruction on how to use it. Weekly tests of all staff by the state. Similar for assisted living facilities. I believe that’s around 60% of deaths in Massachusetts. Manage that so it’s near-zero. Since most nursing homes are mostly Medicaid residents where the state pays, the state also pays for staff PPE, training, and testing. That’s way less cost than pulling the plug on the whole state. I’m not sure how you handle the rest of the high risk people. We need public policies to protect them that don’t require pulling the plug on everything else. I suspect basic respect for them with mask wearing, avoiding physical contact, and lots of sanitation would go a long way since it keeps the transmission rate down.

I’m still hopeful that an effective treatment with antivirals will evolve with antibody plasma transfusions as the treatment of last resort since a lot can go wrong with transfusions. A vaccine might show up eventually but effective treatment is the short term mitigation.

[Bridge781]

Has anyone else been given a date of when they’ll return to the office? We had a meeting a few weeks ago where they said probably until December. Then another email went out today about reopening the wet lab on June 8th and all other personal will work remote until at least the end of August and possibly until the end of December depending on the pandemic.

That seems kind of unclear. I guess if there’s no coronavirus really happening we’ll return at the end of August but If there is the date moves to December. Hmm.

It also seems like a bad idea if all companies are sending employees back to the office at the same time.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Has anyone else been given a date of when they’ll return to the office? We had a meeting a few weeks ago where they said probably until December. Then another email went out today about reopening the wet lab on June 8th and all other personal will work remote until at least the end of August and possibly until the end of December depending on the pandemic.

That seems kind of unclear. I guess if there’s no coronavirus really happening we’ll return at the end of August but If there is the date moves to December. Hmm.

It also seems like a bad idea if all companies are sending employees back to the office at the same time.

We've been told by our company "not before Phase 3". Right now, they're taking that to be July 6. Of course, depending on what Baker does next week with the start of Phase 2, that date can get pushed further.

[Bridge781]

It seems like a lot of companies are telling employees to work remote until the end of the year. I do know someone who was told June 30th and another sept 1

The email that went out was today was to a huge number of people and I’m guessing certain depts will make their own decisions but the return won’t be before the end of August. I kind of wish they’d just say do this until the end of December to make it easier and not leave people guessing.

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Has anyone else been given a date of when they’ll return to the office? We had a meeting a few weeks ago where they said probably until December. Then another email went out today about reopening the wet lab on June 8th and all other personal will work remote until at least the end of August and possibly until the end of December depending on the pandemic.

That seems kind of unclear. I guess if there’s no coronavirus really happening we’ll return at the end of August but If there is the date moves to December. Hmm.

It also seems like a bad idea if all companies are sending employees back to the office at the same time.

Monday June 8th, we are allowing some non-essentials back in office. We've been in meetings all week to figure out how to pull this off.

However, we are limiting office capacity, so everyone has assigned days as to when they can come in. Right now I am assigned 2 days a week, with a 3rd optional floater day.

Not everyone is coming back. Ive given a few of my workers who do 100% computer work the option to stay home indefinitely.

[yesmaybe]

I only know of one, and her company is doing the alternate days thing starting soon, I think it's the 15th.