I've been working from home for two weeks now. Should have been on holiday, but it was cancelled just in time to prevent me going to a locked-down resort, and I got my money back, so can't complain too much.

My company has been reasonably ahead of the game -the plan had been to split into two broadly similar teams and alternate working from home with working from the office. That all changed, and we're now all working from home, with the offices all closed. It's not too much of a hassle - we're pretty much all capable of working remotely. The marketing and sales teams have had their activities curtailed somewhat, however. We've been doing weekly Zoom-based social activities on a Friday afternoon, and the boss has let us claim for beers and takeaway, which is nice of him.

Been WFH for 2 weeks as of today.
I bailed before our work was allowing it. I've got a blood condition that means I'm higher risk. I was on holiday for a week then got back two weeks yesterday, went in on the Monday and thought "fuck this, I need to WFH". Rang my doctor for a bit of advice, he said if I could WFH I should.

We have a lot of people at head office who often WFH so there's infrastructure and systems in place, but it would be fair to say they're not 100%. Best option IMHO would be work computers (or laptops) at home then connect over a VPN.

Instead we have a virtual remote desktop which just isn't the same and resources are limited - open a hefty spreadsheet and it grinds my session to a halt. It also has limited licences it seems considering the recent All Staff emails asking people to logout. I've been nagging the IT Manager a bit too much, but he has setup an RDP connection to my work desktop PC. This is definitely better, but because I think it is going 
My Site --- Head Office (or other data center) --- Home
there's laggggggg.
And because it's being presented over VMWare Horizon rather than a direct RDP there's some keyboard issues.

There's definitely been resistance to people WFH from the senior management (who are all at home). We're a food manufacturer and it is pretty much business as usual. This means we're entering one of our busiest new launch periods and nothing has changed, very little delayed or put on hold. It feels a bit ridiculous and I'm definitely struggling a bit when the work feels somewhat futile.

A virtual remote desktop is what I said goodbye to when I retired. As a DBA team we also had actual terminal access to our mainframe and SSH, remote desktop etc. to live servers, but most of the developers and testers had to make do with a virtual remote desktop. On the other hand, all our admin systems were accessible through VPNs. The other issue was that our client was HMRC and the live systems were all air-gapped so no homeworking on them. 

 That was always the way. There are classes of manager who strongly believe that they should have you where they want you to be, quite literally, because somehow that's how they get their money's worth. There are cost etc. arguments but the driving force is bums-on-seats. 

I'd cope with the virtual remote desktop if the server had the resources to do the job. Not perfect, but "good enough" if it did. Sitting watching Excel calculate and eventually crash isn't productive.

And yeah, I think they struggle with the idea of people managing themselves. My manager is great though, he's encouraged it but those above him struggled with one making the comment along the lines of "they won't be working 100% at home". We've had team Facetime calls daily which has helped keep morale up. The business as a whole has been using Zoom quite a bit.

It has though made me realise more than ever that I rely on human interaction to enjoy my job.

How are you doing today?

Thanks for asking. Day 8 by my estimation. 
this morning my chest finally feels a bit better, the tightness/heaviness is almost gone. I’ve got a return of the headache though. I’m starting to get aches that I know are just from being stuck in bed so long, so I’m going to try and move about some more today, see how that goes. The worry with that is if I’m still emitting a viral load or whatever they call it, I don’t want to increase the chances of the household getting it. 

I’ve been thinking back to possible ways I caught this (boredom) and I remembered my son having that ear infection a couple of weeks ago. Is it possible I caught whatever gave him that and it manifested in me with these Covid-like symptoms? It’s so frustrating that I can’t find out what I’ve got for sure. 

It is frustrating. I know plenty of people who are wondering whether that odd illness they had sometime in the last couple of months may have been Covid-19. Maybe there'll be an antibody test available eventually. I had an attack of something I assumed was norovirus back at the end of December (largely because the in-laws had it too) but it was immediately followed by flu symptoms, conjunctivitis and a hacking painful cough. The cough was so bad I couldn't lie down and for a few nights I had to try and sleep propped up on the settee. I now read that in China, about a third of confirmed cases began with D&V rather than the classic fever/aches and pains. My brother in law had it too and he was with all of us around the same time. The thing is, we all naturally self-isolated - not because that was a thing, but because we all felt too ill to go out.

Anyway, this is the kind of talk that feeds the pointlessly optimistic narratives of the libertarian right that it isn't so bad and we've probably all had it anyway. Hardly unusual to be ill in winter.

Stay warm and take paracetamol for the headache. Over here the idea that ibuprofen may be dangerous to Covid-19 patients is sniffed at a bit. My rellies in France tell me that it's pretty standard wisdom over there, with strong advice to avoid it. And stop shedding your load all over the place. We all know you're bored. 

Tina reminded me of the day (approx day 2 for me) where she had an allergic reaction to something that meant she was lying next to me in bed gasping for air and coughing continuously and I was barely aware of it at all, so I think I may have been mentally downplaying my early fever symptoms. 

It's going to be so surreal if this thing sticks around for the year in waves. And possibly even more so if/when we step out of the other side into whatever normality will be then. I see the early moves in the "we should implement societal change from this" vs "we should aggressively return to the previous ways" are happening already.

I'm sure many more have/had it than have been tested positive, either for lack of testing or testing only indicates active infections. The sheer number of deaths attributed to it so far (again probably some fraction of the actual total) indicates it is so bad. Latest theory is asymptomatic infecteds (to borrow a term from Dead Island) probably spread it the most, since they haven't been self-isolating.

Quite likely since the level of testing on both sides of the pond has been abysmal. Over here it's been targeted at patients who have already been admitted to hospital with almost no subsequent contact tracing - which, in essence, means that it's incredibly ineffective. Hospital staff are rarely tested even when they have symptoms that make it extremely likely that they have contracted the disease. The government repeatedly lies and obfuscates about testing. It's a top priority, but then nothing happens. It's all down to a shortage of chemical reagents, but then the Chemical Industries Association says there's no shortage and besides, nobody has asked them for more. The government says what it wants. There's plenty of news and with a compliant press it won't be on the front page in a day or so.

Then there's this: "Hiding infections in the future is not the same as avoiding them"
 

The paper represents a rather flawed view of things though, doesn't it? In essence it's saying that if you practice isolation and distancing for a period and then stop, you get a pandemic at the end which is just as bad because your population doesn't develop resistance. In particular there's a very fuzzy piece of argument here 
But that's not true. Part of the reason for slowing the initial spread is to allow hospitals to prolong the lives of those with otherwise terminal infections by means of oxygenation, ventilation and anti-viral medication, so that there own immune systems eventually fight off the infection. This is described here as "the hopes of achieving a reduction in the mortality rate." Well, no! These aren't "hopes" these are actual reductions in mortality rates. So when the paragraph continues "mitigations themselves are not saving lives" this is wrong.

And, of course, the other thing you are doing during the delay phase is looking for 1) a vaccine 2) more effective treatments 3) allowing time so that the hospitals are not swamped with patients should they be required at the end of the isolation period for subsequent infections.

Of course, the UK govt and others are making a pig's ear of things, so we may well end up with the nightmare, but this associate professor seems to have been dazzled by a sexy bit of argument and rushed to print with it.

 

I haven't read that one, feel like I've exposed myself to too much info already at the moment, but I've got a feeling that was an article that was roundly debunked or derided for being quite wrong.

Something along the lines of the maths isn't epidemiology.

There are a lot of theories floating around. I try to limit my exposure to the 24/7 barrage of cv news because it can get really scary and depressing.

"Part of the reason for slowing the initial spread is to allow hospitals to prolong the lives of those with otherwise terminal infections by means of oxygenation, ventilation and anti-viral medication, so that there own immune systems eventually fight off the infection."

True, but I think the problem is that there aren't nearly enough ICU beds, equipment (ventilators, PPE) and staff to meet the escalating demand. As it is, the current mortality rate has been quoted as something the 50% ballpark for those lucky enough to get into an ICU -- factoring in people with pre-existing conditions who don't take much to tip over the edge.  :-@

I've never quite understood why some managers are so resistant to it. For my place of work I have a laptop and VPN (had that kind of setup for years). Works a treat and means that I can work from home just as effectively as I can in an office. And of course with no commuting it means I can do a full day of work and have plenty of time for family too.

We've started furloughing people at my place, but only some. I should be OK overall due to the nature of my role. Company policy is pretty decent on furlough anyway as they're topping up the 80% government rate to 90%, so not too bad really.

I’ve had my official furlough letter. 100% pay (well, basic so not what I’d normally expect as I have a decent chunk ‘incentivised’ but still good) for March and April then getting reviewed. My prediction is that unless sport happens in May I’ll be dropping to 80% at that point. I don’t think sport will happen in May. 

Aside from that my chest still improving so that’s nice, I feel almost better at times. Then attempt to do something like walk to another room and quickly discover I’ve a way to go yet. 

Sheesh! Hope you get better soon.

Finally, my son will be working from home. Also, this past week they have made proper working arrangements for those who will be going into the office, with properly spaced desks, markers all over the floor all 2M apart. Seems that somebody at head office realised they would be totally fucked if they suddenly lost half their case workers. The threat of smaller bonuses and so on.