SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Just on the topic of working from home, how many people on here have done it long term? I did it for about 10 years and to be honest it wasnt a healthy way to be for me. Mental health suffered a fair bit but that was just my experience and not indicative of most people.
 
Yeah but if you're supposed to be working 8 hours and then cram all that work into 2 hours so you've got more free time, don't you think they'll then say "hold up, we will just pay for 2 hours work cos they've just fecked about for the other 6"
They have never done that when people have spent 6 hours out of 8 fecking about in the office.

Anyway, this is best discussed in the WFH thread.
 
You can’t discount the huge incentive for employers to not have to pay huge rentals on expensive city centre real estate. It’s in their interests in some instances to have their people wfh on a hybrid basis to reduce headcount in office at any one time.

Ah yeah it won’t be from the companies as long as the work is done. It’ll be government pressure. And even those huge rentals you talk about are part of it. All that tax benefitting you know who…..

This rhetoric that commercial lease agreements suddenly have immediate break clauses due to covid, and therefore companies can decide to not pay huge rentals because the business model changes, is quite naive.
 
This rhetoric that commercial lease agreements suddenly have immediate break clauses due to covid, and therefore companies can decide to not pay huge rentals because the business model changes, is quite naive.

Nah it’s not. It’s not an overnight thing, but COVID has accelerated thinking toward remote/hybrid working that would have otherwise taken a decade.

Ive seen it with my employer and several other massive companies on the UK who are actively reviewing their offices and making decisions to consolidate / move people to wfh contracts or take on “weWork” space rather than fill dedicated offices
 
This rhetoric that commercial lease agreements suddenly have immediate break clauses due to covid, and therefore companies can decide to not pay huge rentals because the business model changes, is quite naive.

Not immediate break clauses but every business will think long and hard before renewing their current lease. The company I work for already decided not to renew. The lease expires next April and we’ll be downsizing because we will no longer expect everyone to spend 40 hours every week in the office. That’s going to happen at a hell of a lot of businesses over the next year or two.
 
I know several call centres that no longer have a centre because all their clients went full on wfh
 
Not immediate break clauses but every business will think long and hard before renewing their current lease. The company I work for already decided not to renew. The lease expires next April and we’ll be downsizing because we will no longer expect everyone to spend 40 hours every week in the office. That’s going to happen at a hell of a lot of businesses over the next year or two.

I don't disagree in the shift, I disagree with the rhetoric that commercial leases is some sort of profit tap and businesses are walking away and suddenly making more money as people are WFH. The more normality that is coming back in (and what I'm seeing personally) is that WFH will get to the hybrid model, and the realisation that in roles where team collaboration is essential, it is pretty impossible to manage via a webcam when you have the ability to do it face to face.
 
Tiny trial. Not peer reviewed. Used only in mild cases who didn’t need any hospital treatment. So why give them any drugs at all? Completely pointless piece of “research”

FDA and WHO are out to hurt us. WAKE UP MAN.
 
Feck me, I've just read India have been moved to the amber list! Fecking India. Birth place of the Indian variant! Run by the Indian Donald Trump. Amber list. :wenger: :mad:

Meanwhile, Imran Khan's sensibly run Pakistan remains on the red list. Because. Well. Sajid fecking Javid.
 
Feck me, I've just read India have been moved to the amber list! Fecking India. Birth place of the Indian variant! Run by the Indian Donald Trump. Amber list. :wenger: :mad:

Meanwhile, Imran Khan's sensibly run Pakistan remains on the red list. Because. Well. Sajid fecking Javid.
Amber list or not, even if someone offered me a free trip to India I wouldn’t take it right now
 
Why the differing approach from even ideologically similar politicians in both countries? I'm assuming they're both pushing these narratives because it suits them but I don't get why WFH seems to suit one group of right & centre-right politicians but not the other.

Key point of difference is the sheer volume of corporate landlords within the Tory party. Back to work ensures the offices stay and the rent cheques keep coming.
 
Tiny trial. Not peer reviewed. Used only in mild cases who didn’t need any hospital treatment. So why give them any drugs at all? Completely pointless piece of “research”
It's a prophylactic, you give it before you get sick. It works by binding to the places SARS2 wants to bind to, iirc.
 
For anyone travelling, do try and use these guys. Or at least give your money to a different not-for-profit testing company. Nobody should be getting rich off this.

Not-For-Profit Testing

Have they been given the green light by governments? I thought the big issue with this was that only certain companies were permitted by government to handle tests for travelling?
 
It's a prophylactic, you give it before you get sick. It works by binding to the places SARS2 wants to bind to, iirc.

As a prophylactic (which that study was not intended to test) it would be even more pointless. What’s the plan? Permanently dose the whole world?
 
As a prophylactic (which that study was not intended to test) it would be even more pointless. What’s the plan? Permanently dose the whole world?
It may be that dosing the world is impractical and thus this will never be pursued even if effective. I'd like to see the cost of doing that versus the cost of not doing it.

But you can start taking it at early onset of symptoms and get good results.
 


This is in-depth/detailed but good. Goes deep on the big questions that remain unknown.

I read that earlier. A history of the pandemic from the virus's perspective really. The thing that really struck me as I read it was the double edged nature of the advances in our understanding of viral mutations. We really didn't know much about this stuff at all until the past couple of decades, and now we're seeing it discussed in real-time.

On the one hand it lets you track virus introductions and to understand it well enough to tackle it with vaccines, tests etc. On the other hand, it can scare people - sometimes into despair, sometimes into a kind of directionless anger that would close all borders forever, and ban just about all socialising or fun activity.
 
I read that earlier. A history of the pandemic from the virus's perspective really. The thing that really struck me as I read it was the double edged nature of the advanced in our understanding of viral mutations. We really know much about this stuff at all until the past couple of decades.

On the one hand it lets you track virus introductions and to understand it well enough to tackle it with vaccines, tests etc. On the other hand, it can scare people - sometimes into despair, sometimes into a kind of directionless anger that would close all borders forever, and ban just about everything that makes life worth living.

Yeah, agree with that second paragraph. “Scariants” are going to be an ongoing issue for the next while.
 
Why is the NHS not getting all of this testing money? Why are private companies involved? We are self testing, and paying money to Companies to analyse. WHY? There is zero need for that.

If there was ever a case to have State intervention it’s here.

We will be testing to travel for at least two years. Centralise it. There are no counter points. I wouldn’t even go mad about Tory sleaze awarding all testing to one company if the price of tests went down to £5-15 a pop.
 
Amber list or not, even if someone offered me a free trip to India I wouldn’t take it right now

There is no Corona in India any more. My city which had over 4200 cases during the peak in April, had only 2 cases today. :lol: :lol:

God knows what they have done with the testing.
 
There is no Corona in India any more. My city which had over 4200 cases during the peak in April, had only 2 cases today. :lol: :lol:

God knows what they have done with the testing.

That’s fascinating. Looks like the steep up/down curve we’re seeing in the UK really is a delta thing. How are the hospitals in India? Emptying out ok?
 
That’s fascinating. Looks like the steep up/down curve we’re seeing in the UK really is a delta thing. How are the hospitals in India? Emptying out ok?

Can only tell about my city but in April there was a massive shortage of hospital beds and almost no intensive care beds available with hundreds dying daily. By the middle of May new cases started coming down to around 300 to 500 a day with availability of beds and resources improving rapidly. By the middle of June daily cases came down to below 100 and for almost a month now the cases for my city are below 15.

I think it's because so many people got infected in the April peak that the spread of the virus has slowed down massively. But if vaccination rates don't pick up, we might be in for another deadly wave.
 
Excellent news in NEJM regarding vaccines efficacy against Delta!!! While there is a slight decrease in efficacy, it is still incredibly high. Main takeaway is GET YOUR SECOND SHOT!

nejmoa2108891_f1.jpeg


Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant | NEJM
 
Yeah, agree with that second paragraph. “Scariants” are going to be an ongoing issue for the next while.
I understand it, and after the last year, we're easy to scare. I'm just conscious that in the UK we're at the point where around 93% of the adult population have covid antibodies - almost all of them from vaccination or vaccination + infection.

We're at the point where I don't know if we should offer incentives to get jabbed, or unvaxxed only super-spreader parties at night clubs - to get (most of) those last few percentage points.

The situation for kids is tougher, but I'm not as enthusiastic as some about assuming that it's appropriate to give them the same vaccine and dosage as adults. Fortunately they're also the group least likely to suffer serious illness from covid infection.

If mutations make (near) normal life too scary now, how many years are people planning to wait?

I'm also looking at Australia and their transition path to normality, and I see a long road ahead. I hope they can do some magic that gets them a 99% vaxxed population, any subsequent covid wave is a minor ripple and they never have to tell their population that it's endemic.

Meanwhile, they're trying to assist their citizens trying to return home by stopping them leaving. Until when?

 
Wow he looks so different compared to the video. Almost like it's two completely different people.
 
:lol:

Is that even real! He's like a character from Airplane v2.0! or something.
Surely an actor…
Wow he looks so different compared to the video. Almost like it's two completely different people.
That's a Youtube comedian called The Real Spark: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkYmKSqZFBH8mPVjc48SZmw
Posted in wrong thread by mistake?
Sorry guys, it’s been a tough day and I was just trying to put something fun into the mix. My wife and about half the other ICU nurses have hit their breaking point with this new Covid surge. She put in her letter of resignation today, along with 2 others. They’re just burned out and I’m bummed out.

There really was a passenger duct taped though for general idiocy and refusing to wear a mask.
 
@decorawe have now had a 100% confirmed outdoor infection. An outbreak in Newcastle caused by an infected person from Sydney illegally travelling from Sydney to attend an equally illegal beach party.
 
Sorry guys, it’s been a tough day and I was just trying to put something fun into the mix. My wife and about half the other ICU nurses have hit their breaking point with this new Covid surge. She put in her letter of resignation today, along with 2 others. They’re just burned out and I’m bummed out.

There really was a passenger duct taped though for general idiocy and refusing to wear a mask.
Aw man I'm sorry