The Official DOOM: Buckle up!

[AtW]

Flu was killing tens of thousands because for some reason it was socially acceptable to go to work whilst ill, no masks at peak times also, which should have been compulsory on public transport at peak flu periods: could have saved tens of thousands lifes, more than road safety stuff.

[AtW]

"A scientific adviser to the government’s Covid-19 response has expressed fears England could be in danger of repeating “the mistakes of last summer”.

Prof Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) subcommittee on behavioural science, said the government may have to reimpose restrictions if the reopening leads to a surge in infections.

He told Times Radio: “My fear is that we’re on line to repeat the mistakes of last summer – if you remember, the prime minister told us it was our patriotic duty to go to the pub, that people should go to work or they might lose their jobs, we had ‘eat out to help out’.

“The consequence was we never got infections low enough to be able to deal with the disease and so when conditions changed in the autumn, when schools went back and people went back to work and universities went back and the weather got worse and we went inside, so infections spiked."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...of-last-summer

[mattster]

Flu was killing tens of thousands because for some reason it was socially acceptable to go to work whilst ill, no masks at peak times also, which should have been compulsory on public transport at peak flu periods: could have saved tens of thousands lifes, more than road safety stuff.

If anything positive comes out of this pandemic then hopefully it will be this. Time to get rid of the idea that it is somehow macho to turn up at work spewing cold and flu virions in all directions and knocking out half of your department. I've always hated it - especially those ridiculous adverts for cold and flu remedies that encourage it.

As far as flu vs covid mortality, best guess is apparently that Covid is still 20x or so more lethal, even for younger people, so its still a very nasty virus. There is a vast amount of resistence to flu within the population, that can result in either mild/asymptomatic infection, or not catching the infection at all. Whenever we get a new flu that evades all prior immunity we call it a pandemic flu, and that is a whole other ballgame.

[ladymuck]

Employers (and clients!) also need to stop with the 'it's only a cold' attitude and stop expecting people to turn up to work when they're full of the lurgy.

There's a whole swathe of jobs that have been proven work perfectly well from home so they should encourage people to work from home while ill if they really must have them working while poorly.

I'd much rather people be encouraged to take time off when full of ick as they'll recover better and faster but I can't see that happening in my lifetime.

[vetran]

Employers (and clients!) also need to stop with the 'it's only a cold' attitude and stop expecting people to turn up to work when they're full of the lurgy.

There's a whole swathe of jobs that have been proven work perfectly well from home so they should encourage people to work from home while ill if they really must have them working while poorly.

I'd much rather people be encouraged to take time off when full of ick as they'll recover better and faster but I can't see that happening in my lifetime.

more importantly for the client/employer you don't spread the lurgy!

[GigiBronz]

Employers (and clients!) also need to stop with the 'it's only a cold' attitude and stop expecting people to turn up to work when they're full of the lurgy.

There's a whole swathe of jobs that have been proven work perfectly well from home so they should encourage people to work from home while ill if they really must have them working while poorly.

I'd much rather people be encouraged to take time off when full of ick as they'll recover better and faster but I can't see that happening in my lifetime.

middle managers are probably scared tulipless at the prospect. the DOOM is for them.