Thread: Covid Mk ll

Originally Posted by loanrangie

Different story in Lakes Entrance, busy as bourke st down there.

I dont see the point of restrictions now, if the majority of the population are vaccinated then get rid of them. Its only the health compromised and tin foil hat brigade that are getting sick from it and who knows how many would have died from the common flu anyway.

Must be empathy week ....

Originally Posted by incisor

Must be empathy week ....

….or stuck in another Maccas car park full of Melbournians escaping the Claytons Lockdown.

I do feel empathy for V8Ian. This would be a real PIA thread to moderate.

These days I only have empathy for my Disco. When I try to show it to humans it never works out the way I expect.

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

These days I only have empathy for my Disco. When I try to show it to humans it never works out the way I expect.

I lead with "Have you met the Antichrist? I won't fit a winch to it in case it winds itself up a tree. You may laugh, but it got me here and fingers crossed it'll get me home again".

Then I intimate it cost 1/4 of the purchase price of their current wagon, and it does everything theirs does without all the added expense and weight of the mods. Once I've backed up and coupled the van without leaving the drivers seat, his wife is usually breaking his ribs with her elbow and giving that "why do we have to go through that again?" look. Much to the Antichrists smug satisfaction.

Of course if it did break down then I'd look pretty stupid, but it knows I carry a 5L jerry of 98 in the car ready to set fire to it if it breaks down again so it tends to behave. Of course the day I leave the jerry at home....

Fortunately I don't have to do it alone.

Originally Posted by Arapiles

My new office is in Collins Street and I went in yesterday. The city was like a ghost town and it's now an issue trying to find somewhere to buy lunch because I'd guess that at least 70% of the places have shut down. I went into a food court that still has a couple of booths operating and stopped in front of a curry place - there were no staff and I was about to leave when the owner came sprinting up. I'm guessing that he doesn't currently see a lot of customers.

And if you have a look at the tennis you'll notice that there's hardly anyone there: there were plenty of empty seats on Sunday.

So, as it turns out, when you remove restrictions when there's a huge surge in Covid most employers, like mine, will simply tell their staff to stay at home until things settle down. Similarly, most people will exercise common sense and stay at home rather than go to, for example, the tennis. And as it turns out, people also haven't been that keen to go on holiday in the countryside or even just travel around: I went up to the west of the State last weekend and after Ballarat barely saw another car.

Interestingly enough Canberra is a ghost town at the moment too, lots of people at work are on leave and have staggered their leave and taken extra because so many have big leave balances they must take or be deemed (forced to be on leave whether they like it or not) probably due to no one taking mid year leave because they were locked down anyway. We are having the occasional person on covid leave either because they have it or are a close contact but the vast majority just don't want to be at work and would rather be on holidays and have the leave balance to support that.

Regards,
Tote

Found a piece of research on the efficacy of masks on time to infection in the presence of an infectious person. Interesting stuff with the discussion here in NZ recently turning to fine-tuning the types of masks worn by various people as omicron just starts to make its presence felt here.

From the The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) and these guys research the equipment needed in day to day OHS applications like PPE and present their results to the OHS profession.

Their research around mask efficacy is kind of interesting. COVID-19 Fact Sheet: Workers Need Respirators - ACGIH

Screenshot 2022-01-25 at 21-57-25 COVID-19 Fact Sheet Workers Need Respirators - ACGIH.jpg

Not sure of their method but if the numbers are considered representative only, it highlights some interesting representative efficacy.

Originally Posted by Tote

Interestingly enough Canberra is a ghost town at the moment too, lots of people at work are on leave and have staggered their leave and taken extra because so many have big leave balances they must take or be deemed (forced to be on leave whether they like it or not) probably due to no one taking mid year leave because they were locked down anyway. We are having the occasional person on covid leave either because they have it or are a close contact but the vast majority just don't want to be at work and would rather be on holidays and have the leave balance to support that.

Regards,
Tote

Yes, similar for us. Lots of people also didn't take sickies because they didn't need to. A client at one of the banks was telling me that absenteeism plummeted over the first year of Covid, presumably because people usually have to take sick leave so they can deal with stuff like having to be home for tradies or to go to parent-teacher interviews that are held during school hours. Since they were working from home - and that became the norm after the lockdowns - that need disappeared. The work got done, it just maybe didn't happen between 9.00am and 5.00pm.