Pandemics and Epidemiology (COVID-19, monkeypox, etc.)

At least in the US, the majority of remote-capable employees are already doing hybrid WFH. [1]

If you read the links in my last post you’ll see that the negative effects of WFH cannot be attributed purely to the pandemic. There’s a sizable body of research on telework done prior to the pandemic that draws similar conclusions, and remote workers themselves generally report that remote work is responsible for their reduced emotional wellbeing.

This forum seems to be significantly more introverted and more technology-literate than the average, both characteristics that are associated with a more positive view of WFH.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 25th 2024 at 8:45:52 AM

Living in Japan here, I will admit that while I do miss hanging out with coworkers (I moved to this company during the pandemic and have never actually met my teammates in person), it's absolutely worth it to avoid the 2.5 - 3 hours of daily commute I would have to be doing to work in the office, on the same laptop that I currently have at home. To say nothing of avoiding the infamous crush of Tokyo's metro system during morning and evening hours.

If it was a question of the mental health benefits of socialization, then I would agree that WFH has been modestly negative for me on that front. But balancing it against the costs I would have to shoulder in terms of transportation costs, my lost hours every day, no longer having the ability to shop for groceries during my lunch break, etc... WFH has huge benefits and minor downsides for me.

There is a bit of limitation with regard to your articles in saying that it's not due to the pandemic, in that 2 of the articles were written as the pandemic was raging (articles 1 and 3 were written/updated in June 2020 and October 2020 respectively). And even the 2nd article which was written in 2022, didn't say working from home pointed specifically towards bad results and that it was a was a complex multi-variable function on whether working from home lead to changes in satisfaction and productivity, one way or the other. One of its major discussion points in article 2 was that WFH lead to increased satisfaction when properly supported with the necessary equipment. For instance, in the study cited another study that had 77% positive work experience and satisfaction when the respondents felt they were given adequate equipment to support WFH, compared to 31% when the respondents said that they didn't. And if you're stating that WFH having old data means that the negative effect cannot be blamed on the pandemic, the old data also doesn't account for a post-pandemic context either.

It's a possibility that the reason the articles 1 and 3 didn't have good response was because on top of the pandemic, the technology and infrastructure was still not greatly supported for WFH, which was greatly accelerated once the pandemic hit and people had to stay home, so now the technology that supported WFH became cheaper, more widespread, and also a culture or employees that found it to be more beneficial to them. Another major issue with regards to WFH is that you need a proper internet infrastructure at home in order to handle things like VOIP, file transfers, real time video streaming and the like, and there are now increased spending on bringing broadband to more areas, make WFH more supported, post-pandemic, compared to studies that are done pre or during pandemic. And there are recent articles [1] [2], that either say that WFH yielded higher worker satisfaction (especially with millennial and younger workers who would be the bulk workforce soon if not already), or it was dependent on separate factors with their office, that WFH alleviated. For example, the second article I cited stated that WFH employees found greater satisfaction when they didn't enjoy their management (as WFH allows them to avoid having to deal with corporate culture), or if they valued flexibility.

Speaking for myself, prior to Covid, we did not have any remote options to work from home. We had telework technologies, but they were not very well supported, in that the VPN would drop connection constantly and our internet infrastructure had me at 1/20 of the download speed I have currently, we didn't have a VOIP system in place, so all communications had to be through email or phone calls. If I were to work remotely under those type of conditions, all the time, I'd be driven mad. Post-Covid, we now have VPN that is able to maintain connection solidly throughout the entire day, the local internet infrastructure in our area was improved, and the use of Microsoft Teams facilitated fast direct messaging, allowances for impromptu meetings, and secure VOIP communication. We're now in a hybrid model of WFH, where if there's anything that needs to be done in person, we would be there, but otherwise only 40% of our week do we need to be in the office, and if it's not time sensitive, we can schedule our in-person items during then. That has been office-wide policy for over a year and no sign of it going away.

Edited by HeyMikey on Feb 25th 2024 at 10:28:19 AM

I'm not sure we have one at the moment.

A thread about like, office/work culture and working arrangements and unions might be a good idea. This topic and the economics topic keep getting derailed about those and they're all interconnected enough that they link up pretty well.

EDIT: I made one, it's up to the mods if they want to open it.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 26th 2024 at 9:06:24 AM

True, it does keep coming up.

Was about to say that there's only a Job (search) discussion thread.

CDC ditches 5-day COVID isolation, argues COVID is becoming flu-like: The agency released a unified "practical" guidance for respiratory viruses.

So... is this true or not? Can we trust the CDC now under Biden?

I feel like I'm going to get yelled at again.

So this basically means that, whenever you get flu-like symptoms, it could actually be mild Covid?

Edited by Redmess on Mar 2nd 2024 at 11:52:54 AM

Not surprising. Tokyo had the same designation IIRC last year or so.

What the CDC is saying is that, unless you get an acute case, there's no functional difference in how you manage viral diseases between influenza and COVID. Stay home, take OTC remedies for the symptoms, don't go back to work or school or whatever until you're getting better.

Sure, you can test to see if it's COVID or something else, but said testing has limited utility since you should behave the same regardless.

That being said, if your employer still has a Covid specific time off condition on the books (like mine does), do get tested, because then you still have the rest of your sick time available.

It's also worth noting that covid has a wrinkle to it that always applies and that means testing is still useful.

If you catch it, you are always infectious for some time before you get any symptoms. If you get it and you test positive, you can tell your coworkers to also get tested, and honestly, we should just normalize quarantine for sickness in general, instead of the stupid current thing where a lot of employers are like "we encourage you not to come in when you're sick HOW DARE YOU FUCK US OVER BY CALLING IN SICK WE WERE UNDERSTAFFED BECAUSE OF YOU".

We should also just normalize wearing a mask if we have to go out when we're sick, honestly. Like basically all of Asia.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 2nd 2024 at 7:14:28 AM

Yeah, “workers should have paid time off when sick, and employers shouldn’t guilt them for using it” and “stay home as much as possible when you’re sick, wear a mask if you have to go out when sick” should just be no-brainers.

What's the opposite of anti-vaccination? Hypervaccination!

German man got 217 COVID shots over 29 months—here’s how it went: It conflicts with concerns of repeat boosters, but authors warn against hypervaccination.

Holy. Shit.

Getting an extra shot just to be sure is one thing, but there is such a thing as overdoing it.

Edited by Redmess on Mar 6th 2024 at 10:14:33 AM

Too much of any medication is risky? Total shocker. /sarc

Though it's noted that it didn't actually hurt him either.

They don't recommend it mostly because it doesn't seem to make you significantly more immune anyway.

TBH, you're more likely to get yourself killed by taking too much aspirin.

Edited by M84 on Mar 6th 2024 at 5:18:25 PM

They don't recommend it because there was a fear it would weaken the immune system. That doesn't seem to be the case... for this guy.

He claims to not have had any side effects either. Could be true, but that's not going to be true for everyone. Something like this could go very different for someone else.

This is very much Don't Try This at Home territory.

And no, this is not healthy, this is being obsessed. One vaccine a year is fine. You don't need more. You certainly don't need one every week.

Edited by Redmess on Mar 6th 2024 at 10:25:32 AM

Did I say it was healthy?

I just made a point that too much medication in general usually isn't great for you. So it's really not a surprise that they don't recommend vaccinating too often.

Edited by M84 on Mar 6th 2024 at 5:26:14 PM

You seemed to be implying that it was not a big deal, yes.

That is not the same thing as saying it's healthy and you know it.

I was not disagreeing with you, M84, I was just still reacting to the news.

Anyway, the point of the article is that the results are contrary to the concerns people have had that too much vaccination leads to weaker immune responses.

This case was of interest specifically because it was an actual example of hypervaccination. If anyone had a weaker immune response due to too much vaccination, it would be this guy.

But he didn't.

Again, it's only one case. You'd need way more cases of people taking that many vaccinations to draw forth any reasonable conclusions. But it's still interesting that this case's results were contrary to the expectations.

Yes, it is interesting. This guy was probably very lucky, though.

…maybe don’t make assertions like that. He was “probably” lucky? We don’t know that. We do know that people who get normal vaccination regimens don’t have weaker immune system responses in general. A lot of the assertions in that direction are basically pseudoscience and people trying to link it to allergies don’t have any compelling evidence and ignore that we’ve always had allergies, we just had a lot less adults with allergies in the past for a pretty morbid reason.

But yeah, no compelling evidence that vaccines weaken your immune system and tons and tons and tons of compelling evidence that most of the diseases we vaccinate against absolutely do have major and extremely negative impacts on your immune system.

Overvaccinating most likely just makes the immune system go “ALRIGHT, WE GET IT, STOP THROWING THIS STUFF AT US, WE CAN GET RID OF IT IN 30 SECONDS FLAT NOW.”

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 6th 2024 at 8:28:34 AM

Sounds a bit like the widely debunked idea that hyperdosing on vitamins improves health. Anything the body doesn't need gets filtered out and flushed down the toilet.

Yeah. Getting vitamin C is important. But the amount we actually need is surprisingly low (it's really difficult to get scurvy unless you refuse to eat any fruits or vegetables at all) and overdosing just creates expensive pee, basically.

Overvaccinating likely has little to no meaningful impact with modern vaccines. It'd probably be a really bad idea with the really early ones, but we don't like, vaccinate people by infecting them with other diseases anymore. No more vaccinating people against smallpox by giving them cowpox.

The thing is like, the idea that people's immune systems are stronger if they actually catch diseases doesn't hold up. At all. In any way, shape or form. Like, oh, you caught chicken pox? Well, now you probably won't get it again, but you can get shingles, which can and will cause permanent nerve damage. I was unlucky enough to get shingles at 14 and yeah, I got nerve damage from it. Not a lot of nerve damage, and not anywhere important, but there is part of my chest where I alternate between phantom pains and not feeling anything at all because of it, and if I get sick in the wrong way again, I'll get shingles again. Worse. If I'd been vaccinated, I'd be safe from that and I wouldn't have this nerve damage.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 6th 2024 at 8:57:43 AM