Covid 19 Risk Management

So basically the author only wants people to go to work or outside their house of they are in a field in the middle of nowhere basically.
The whole article doesn't give any hope of fixing anything realistically.
 
I think the author maybe just wants people to manage their own risk with some useful background on the way this virus is transmitted. It does mean that things like playing golf, or cycling with a mate outside are probably less hazardous than going to the office.
 
RandySavage said:
So basically the author only wants people to go to work or outside their house of they are in a field in the middle of nowhere basically.
The whole article doesn't give any hope of fixing anything realistically.
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It gives a few examples of workplaces that haven't fared well. Equally, there must be some that have - it would be good to see it updated with more examples.
 
RandySavage said:
So basically the author only wants people to go to work or outside their house of they are in a field in the middle of nowhere basically.
The whole article doesn't give any hope of fixing anything realistically.
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Of course it does but it needs input from government and corporations to make working environments safe, possibly by changing their work process. Not be risking people's lives.

Too many are thinking the world should simply be as it was, it's not going to be hopefully. We can get the economy back up and running as soon as those in power (public and private) step up and play their part.

Perhaps looking at overall goals for society would be a good start. We can then get rid of some needless practices. Travelling to an office to perform a task which could be done from home for instance. Increased mechanisation another. The distribution of goods, the food industry, transport.

It's a great time for the country to develop, stop being so wasteful and treat people more fairly.

You may be happy taking the risk but many more won't be, and why should anyone be risking their lives when there is no need.
 
I think a lot of firms will look at downsizing office space and encouraging home working after this experience. And people have now become used to meetings via zoom etc, so there should be a reduction in needless travel. I've used zoom for international meetings for a while now and, while it ain't perfect, it's a sight better than hopping on a plane to LA for one meeting.
 
borolad259 said:
I think a lot of firms will look at downsizing office space and encouraging home working after this experience. And people have now become used to meetings via zoom etc, so there should be a reduction in needless travel. I've used zoom for international meetings for a while now and, while it ain't perfect, it's a sight better than hopping on a plane to LA for one meeting.
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Borolad, I agree. I have always worked from home about 50% of the time, but in the past there was an expectation for me to spend 50% of my time at the client premises. I am working with a company in Poland at the moment and for 3 months now I have worked from home as both my organization and the client have banned travel, I can see the focus changing once we can travel again.

I miss the office environment, but 1 week in 3 on-site, particularly for international travel, is plenty and I am hoping we move toward that kind of business as usual working practice.
 
borolad259 said:
I think a lot of firms will look at downsizing office space and encouraging home working after this experience. And people have now become used to meetings via zoom etc, so there should be a reduction in needless travel. I've used zoom for international meetings for a while now and, while it ain't perfect, it's a sight better than hopping on a plane to LA for one meeting.
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I used to work from home 2 days a week but now it's mostly at home apart from when needed.
As much as it should be encouraged I also believe it makes sense for people to occasionally go into the office because you tend to get more new projects and ideas flowing from impromptu conversations at the office.

Like maybe a better balance is 1.5 days in the office and rest at home.
 
In my current (furloughed) job, I have no obligation to go into the office at all. This is a first in my working life that I can remember. I had a contract in the last couple of years where I had no need to be in the office for more than a couple of days a week, but I had a production manager who insisted upon me being there every day that I wasn't filming or editing.
 
borolad259 said:
In my current (furloughed) job, I have no obligation to go into the office at all. This is a first in my working life that I can remember. I had a contract in the last couple of years where I had no need to be in the office for more than a couple of days a week, but I had a production manager who insisted upon me being there every day that I wasn't filming or editing.
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I think it's that attitude (of your production manager) that will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Some managers seem to think that if they're not directly looking at people for 8 hours a day, then no work would get done.

The reality is that, in most jobs, there's a certain amount of work that needs to be done to a particular standard by a certain time. It obviously doesn't apply to all jobs but, for the vast majority of people, they are both capable and trustworthy enough to undertake that work from home. For those that aren't, remote working actually makes it easier for a manager to differentiate between individual performance and team performance, facilitating the necessary management action.

Organisations have now invested far too much into remote working, through new hardware (laptops, etc), increased network capacity and new working practices. They won't just want to rip that up and return to 'normal' and they'll also want to make savings in office space, travel, heating and lighting, etc.

I can envisage the new world being one of predominantly home working for most office staff, with office time being limited to essential meetings and some staff welfare (i.e. a bit of human contact).
 
Billy Horner said:
I think it's that attitude (of your production manager) that will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Some managers seem to think that if they're not directly looking at people for 8 hours a day, then no work would get done.

The reality is that, in most jobs, there's a certain amount of work that needs to be done to a particular standard by a certain time. It obviously doesn't apply to all jobs but, for the vast majority of people, they are both capable and trustworthy enough to undertake that work from home. For those that aren't, remote working actually makes it easier for a manager to differentiate between individual performance and team performance, facilitating the necessary management action.

Organisations have now invested far too much into remote working, through new hardware (laptops, etc), increased network capacity and new working practices. They won't just want to rip that up and return to 'normal' and they'll also want to make savings in office space, travel, heating and lighting, etc.

I can envisage the new world being one of predominantly home working for most office staff, with office time being limited to essential meetings and some staff welfare (i.e. a bit of human contact).
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Absolutely.
 
There have been 30 people who have died form this virus under the age of 40 without underlying health conditions. If you are in this bracket, you are currently more likely to drown.

We should be having serious conversations about phasing young healthy people back into work and shielding the most vulnerable.
 
Duke said:
There have been 30 people who have died form this virus under the age of 40 without underlying health conditions. If you are in this bracket, you are currently more likely to drown.

We should be having serious conversations about phasing young healthy people back into work and shielding the most vulnerable.
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I kind of agree to a point. But the "shielding the most vulnerable" bit has already been proven to be quite difficult. Certainly easier to say than to do.
 
Duke said:
There have been 30 people who have died form this virus under the age of 40 without underlying health conditions. If you are in this bracket, you are currently more likely to drown.

We should be having serious conversations about phasing young healthy people back into work and shielding the most vulnerable.
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Careful Duke the lockdown fanatics will be after you..

You raise perfectly valid points of course... It's funny in America no furlough and everyone has quickly woken to the reality of the risk being almost none existent for most healthy people due to the economic reality.

In the UK with furlough you see plenty of people my age (30s, fit and healthy) who are scared to catch it and couldn't possibly go back to work unless they get free hazmat suits because 'the economy can wait' totally denying the reality that it's not life Vs economy but life Vs life.
 
borolad259 said:
I kind of agree to a point. But the "shielding the most vulnerable" bit has already been proven to be quite difficult. Certainly easier to say than to do.
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That's always going to be the case though, it just doesn't make sense grouping everyone together when the risk factors are so different, the virus isn't going to go away and it's unlikely there will be a vaccine that can be rolled out within the next 24 months. Almost half of the UK deaths have come from care homes which is in part due to Government negligence rather than shielding old people being an impossible task.

We can't live under a strict lockdown for that long, it's just not feasible and the evidence is beginning to suggest that it's not necessary either.

We have flattened the curve and taken some burden off the NHS, the infection rate will begin to climb again once we lift lockdown as we can see in Germany. I don't see that many options outside of slowly introducing young healthy people back into work so they can begin to get the country moving again. Whether we like it or not the economy is a real thing and every drop in employment and percentile of negative growth leads to thousands dead.

I say this as someone in this demographic as well.
 
Duke said:
We can't live under a strict lockdown for that long
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We haven't lived under 'strict lockdown' at all which is a big part of the problem. Indecision and half-measures from day one. We've now had enough time to put measures in place to begin the slow return to normality but haven't bothered. An app that might alert you to someone who might be ill, but might not be 'cos we still don't test properly is about as far as we've got.


Duke said:
like it or not the economy is a real thing and every drop in employment and percentile of negative growth leads to thousands dead
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That's a bold claim without any evidence to back it up. It leaves a big gaping hole between causation and correllation too.

Does negative growth lead to 1000s of deaths or does the governement response to negative growth lead to 1000s of deaths?

People dying from austerity measures in the UK wouldn't have died in countries which didn't implement the same measures in response to the same economic crisis.

If someone becomes 'economically inactive' with no safety net and no community support then I'd expect worse outcomes than there'd be with e.g. UBI and well funded support services.
 
Scrote said:
We haven't lived under 'strict lockdown' at all which is a big part of the problem. Indecision and half-measures from day one. We've now had enough time to put measures in place to begin the slow return to normality but haven't bothered. An app that might alert you to someone who might be ill, but might not be 'cos we still don't test properly is about as far as we've got.




That's a bold claim without any evidence to back it up. It leaves a big gaping hole between causation and correllation too.

Does negative growth lead to 1000s of deaths or does the governement response to negative growth lead to 1000s of deaths?

People dying from austerity measures in the UK wouldn't have died in countries which didn't implement the same measures in response to the same economic crisis.

If someone becomes 'economically inactive' with no safety net and no community support then I'd expect worse outcomes than there'd be with e.g. UBI and well funded support services.
Click to expand...

Whether you view the lockdown as strict or not isn't really relevant to the point, there's actually minimal difference between the lockdown we have had and some that have been considered more strict. The key differences were timing and lack of testing. The highest risks of transmission come from family gatherings and mass gatherings in small spaces, both of which have been massively reduced in lockdown. Given the current risk factors, it doesn't make sense to keep young healthy people under lockdown for much longer. The lockdown we had made sense it just come too late.

There's plenty of evidence to back up the link between mortality and unemployment rate. Of course the actions of the Government are factored into this but in case you haven't noticed, we are currently under a Conservative Government and this isn't changing anytime soon. They have already layed out more money that the vast majority of countries around the world with the current furlough scheme, that's money that needs to be recouped one way or another. Mark Carney has made it abundantly clear that unless we begin to get moving sooner rather than later, we will be in a recession that will make 2008 look like a massive overreaction.

Unless there's unprecedented international cooperation from the central banking system to eliminate these debts, we are going to be in a deep recession that not amount of spending will ease.
 
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