Should we encourage work from home every flu season?

Yes.

Every one that can should have a flu shot. They should also stay home when sick.
Other than that, I don’t think quarantines are the answer.

@chyna I don’t consider it a quarantine for employers to allow people to work from home.

No. My company offers free flu shots for every employee. That is much more effective and demonstrated to reduce people out sick.

No one is talking about discouraging flu shots. Flu isn’t the only illness that floats around more during flu season. Plus, people still get flus even if they are vaccinated and some people don’t get vaccinated. I do agree offering a flu shot is a great service to employees though.

The more people can reduce their exposure to illness, the better off everyone will be.

Working from home should be an option. Another advantage to working from home is it would cut down on pollution from so many cars. But that’s besides the point, I know.

Flu shots are great for those that can get them. I can’t get a flu shot, so I’m one who would be grateful for less exposure to illness. Flu shots combined with people staying in the house more would be a one-two punch – great for helping eradicate bugs.

Since many people other than knowledge and tech workers can’t work from home, you risk creating an even more stratified class system. Cov-19 is an unusual situation right now as there is no vaccine available. Working from home for those who can may help prevent the spread of viruses and is a help for some in this situation but I don’t see it as a yearly ritual.

@janbb Interesting point about the class system.

@jca2 I always liked the idea of less pollution and less gas usage if people can telecommute its work a 4 day workweek.

My son is in the tech field and he does work from home two days a week because of child care needs. he said his company is considering it for everyone.

I think if it’s possible, of course they should allow it year round. For happiness, pollution, disease, etc…

@KNOWITALL I agree with that, I just don’t see it as a seasonal prophylactic. There are those who lack the discipline to work from home effectively and many fields where it is not possible. There is also value to the synergy of interacting with other people face to face. But it is certainly a good option for some industries and some workers.

@janbb I agree with a lot of what you said. That’s why I prefer a model where people work from both home and in the office.

I think that the police and fire department responsiveness will be limited if they work at home.

It might be difficult to get the car fixed or the dog shit in the yard cleaned up from an inside location.

I teach two classes online, which can be fine from home, but my other five are in-person. It’s just not an option.

The sooner everyone is exposed to COVID-19, the sooner everybody will have immunity and the sooner everything can get back to normal.

@kritiper It works both ways. If the virus isn’t passed on it will die out. It needs a host to survive. What you said is true too, but that will be a lot more people sick and some more people dead also.

Meanwhile, I’m not focusing on just COVID-19 with this Q, it’s about flu season in general. Basically, Dec through March, but many people work less in December and kids are out of school 2–3 weeks in December anyway. Of course, all that shopping has people together, but it seems online shopping is already making a dent in that for years now.

I know that lots of people travel, for business. But. In this age of technology, I don’t see why.

You can have video conferences, and talk to almost anyone, anywhere.

I just see a LOT of unneeded travel. The same objectives, can be accomplished with technology.

There is no longer a need, to send people around the world, to have meetings.

I think it would be smart, to stop most travel, that could be business done, through technology.

It would cut down on disease spreading, and pollution.

@kritiper Hospital beds are limited and could be overwhelmed by COVID-19. ‘The arithmetic suggests that we will outstrip hospital resources, particularly instensive care resources, in waves as the pandemic spreads,’ Richard Waldhorn a pulmonary critical care physician .

@MrGrimm888 Business travel goes up and down. Back during the heyday of dotcom and telecom they flew all over the world business class, and then the industry took a hit and the companies looked to cut back expenses and reduced travel. At present time I don’t know if business travel is less now than back during the late 90’s when a lot of travel was going on. Like you said, now people can video call.

Some things are better face to face though. Trust and rapport are evaluated differently face-to-face I think.

Some business travel is actually write-off vacations. Conferences can mean a family goes to DisneyWorld writing off the hotel bill, and I’ve seen businesses treat employees to cruises, and other vacations as a bonus, or for a holiday party. All sorts of extravagance.

Good point about business travel doubling as vacations. That’s the reason why places like Disney World are such popular places for conferences and trade shows. The working spouse can take the non-working spouse and the kids (or just the kids, or kids and a babysitter) and for just the cost of the extra flights, they can all have a vacation and the working spouse gets out early and joins them in the parks. Same with Las Vegas and other fun places.

Not every job allows for working from home.

@JLeslie . I agree, that meeting with someone in person, has an advantage.

But. It doesn’t change demand, prices, or any real numbers.

The travel part, is more like what you say. An excuse to go somewhere nice, and not have to pay for it…

I attended a CE class, in Arizona once. It was at a lavish resort, and basically just gave me an opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon. It was all great. But. I could have done it all, by watching videos of the lectures.

@JLeslie and @Tropical_Willie But that could happen, as it could happen in any pandemic. And it’s not like the human race is going to die out because of COVID-19.
A noted expert on TV last week estimated that 80 million Americans could get the virus. That’s only about 1/5 of the population of the US.

Okay and 3 percent of 80,000,000 is only 2,400,000 dead.

It depends on who is counting the dead! Trump will have only ten or twenty but he can’t count !!!!

Just ate out with a friend and my waitress was sick. I saw her breathing through her mouth, so I asked her, “are you sick?” She replied, “yes.” Pisses me off so much.

I asked her to have someone else serve our food. She immediately agreed. She basically said she had asked to go home or not come in, I don’t remember. F**king manager was making her stay. I think they finally let her go home after me asking directly. I wrote the corporate headquarters. You would think with coronavirus paranoia this shot would not be happening. I’m not afraid tgat it’s COVID-19, I ask people directly all the time if they are sick if I suspect they are. Most of the time they say, “it’s just allergies.” I never believe that.

I bet it’s a real dilemma for someone like a restaurant manager, because they’re probably already short-staffed, with barely enough wait staff to cover the tables. Then if someone is out sick and they can’t get someone to come in to cover, what can they do? I’m not saying I think they should have sick people working, but they probably are baffled at how to handle the issue. Then if they have not enough staff, and people are waiting a long time to get their food, the customers will be pissed, give them bad reviews, etc. I can see it being an issue. At least with nurses or correction officers, if someone doesn’t come in, the person who was there on the previous shift just can’t go home. At least the shift is covered.

@jca2 Yes, it is a difficult situation a lot of the time, but the restaurant was half empty, they could have let her go home. We got there at 7:30, and it closes at 9:00, there wasn’t going to be some mad rush in the last hour and a half. Now, two more employees will have that cold in the next few days..

^it’s not that aren’t making sense. You are…

But. In a cooperation. You are expected to show up, sick or not.
And if you don’t get paid, you don’t get to keep your water, or power on. Nobody cares, if you’re sick.
You pay your bills, or you don’t.

There are no exceptions. So. You work, unless you want to lose your job.
If you spread your disease, oh well….
That’s how it works.

Sad, but true.

@MrGrimm888 This girl wanted to go home. She left after my interaction with her. Another waitress took over. The place was not busy, they had enough staff without her. I could understand if the restaurant was packed, but it wasn’t, Even if they can’t give the person time off all of the time, if they can some of the time it is better than nothing.

^Agreed.

If every body works from home just because it’s “flu season,” then we shut down all grocery stores, all convenience stores, all stores, period. We also shut down the schools and colleges. The cops don’t work, EMS doesn’t work.

^And. People don’t build immunity, to whatever diseases.

Shutting everything down, would actually hurt our species. A lot of people, are just going to catch this bug. Then we will be stronger, overall.

@JLeslie It will die out? Like the flu virus dies out??

@kritiper it could. Spanish flu is no longer around. It was too deadly. It infected ⅓ of the world if I remember correctly, and killed many people within 48 hours of showing symptoms. The virus couldn’t find a host after a while.

Eventually, you can get herd immunity. It might take years. If we create a vaccine it will happen faster.

Having said that, you can look at H1N1 that panicked people several years ago. That’s still floating around and was big this year. It was in the vaccine this year. We aren’t rid of it years later. It is much much more active in America during our flu season. People can get flu any time of year, but we see a ton more of it during our winter. Eventually, maybe we will get herd immunity and that strain of flu will disappear.

It’s interesting how viruses, and disease work. They are contradictory, to the way most other lifeforms work.
The typical lifeform, wants to reproduce and continue on.
Viruses/diseases, will eventually wipe themselves out. Especially when they have a high mortality rate, amongst hosts…

Even parasites, don’t usually kill the animals they depend on. They have a symbiotic relationship, sort of, by living on, because their host lives on…

It seems that viruses/diseases, are like wildfires. Just existing, to purge nature.

Viruses want to “live.” They make us sneeze and cough and leak out of our bodies to infect the next host. Some viruses are just better at it than others. Some cause a perfect balance of illness, mild, but not too mild, that they could theoretically be around forever. Viruses like HIV could have killed off a huge part of our population without intervention. It was passed from mother to fetus. That child would die before being able to reproduce, and that whole line of people would be gone. Diseases that kill people before reproductive years put serious dents in the population.

It is interesting how the different viruses work. They aren’t really alive without a host. A bacteria divides and multiplies on its own given the right medium, but a virus needs another living cell to do that. That old argument from high school biology class, is a virus a living organism?

Today (3/11), on the anniversary of the Spanish Flu appearing at Fort Riley KS, it is good to note that it was a form of H1N1, the same flu from the 2009 swine flu scare.

Viruses don’t die off, they mutate.

@zenvelo Small Pox is gone. We vaccinated enough to create herd immunity, and eventually the virus couldn’t find a place to infect anyone. As far as I know it didn’t mutate.

Gates foundation is working on eliminating polio.

As far as swine flu, good point. I’m not sure that the more recent H1N1 is considered a mutation from the Spanish flu pandemic? Like it’s been floating around in pigs all of this time and then jumped to humans? I’m not sure how it works or the correct terminology.

@JLeslie: H1N1 is a mutation from Spanish Flu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1

@jca2 I would argue the Spanish flu died off though. That specific strain no longer is in existence. What do you think? There are other mutations of H1N1, but not that one that killed so many human beings. Maybe my use of the terms is wrong.

@JLeslie: I don’t know enough about it to even hazard a guess. I just posted the link about the connection because of the discussion above between you and @zenvelo.

@jca2 Yes, I knew you were just trying to be helpful, and I appreciate the link.

The point is, they don’t just “die off” on their own.

^^Yes they do. It’s not like we had a vaccine for Spanish flu.