You can get your own HEPA air purifier to put in your work space. Orient the purifier so that the filtered air blows on your face so you’re breathing filtered air. Even if the office has an upgraded air handler, the infected droplets will hang around in the air for a while until they get sucked into the return vent.
Well you can call me sexist but I think more people show compassion to women.
In the dentist office we are visiting that probably wont happen because you show up for your appointment, call the office, and they dont call you in until the other person leaves. Nobody is allowed to sit in the waiting room. You have to wear a mask at all times. They ask several questions ahead of time plus check temperature.
So infection could occur but they really work hard to prevent it.
The virus can linger in the air for some time after that person leaves. I’m not sure how long - that’s still being studied and debated. But I would hazard a guess that smaller particles can remain airborne for at least 10 minutes, riding the air currents within the building. The masks are good, but they’re better at preventing the spread of droplets and less effective at reducing inhalation, though any physical barrier would probably help in terms of reducing the ‘dose’ of the virus.
I’m not at to pee on anyone’s hopes or sense of safety, and I certainly don’t think we should try to lock ourselves in a basement for six months. But I think it’s important to understand the possible risks. One reason people are getting sick despite social distancing is because they are not completely aware of how a person can get sick. It takes just one mistake - just one. And depending on your living situation, one mistake can easily lead to three or four new infections, some of which can turn lethal quickly.
Chessic, does your office have a masks-required policy? If not, they really should.
I work for a very large IT firm and they are not rushing the return-to-the-office at all - aside from essential staff who’ve been going all along. Supposedly they will issue masks for everyone also.
I am extraordinarily fortunate in that a) I’ve been largely WFH for 6 years, and b) my company is not rushing it. I figure the longer those of us who CAN stay away, DO stay away, the better - not just for ourselves, but because we then provide fewer vectors for transmission.
Urbanredneck: “mask at all times” would make it tough for them to get a look at your mouth, wouldn’t it? :D.
I’m obviously missing something. What does this observation have to do with the fact that more men die from the virus? Are you saying women get better care???
Whether or not I think this is true (I’m skeptical), this has to do with the issue how, exactly??
Getting back to the OP, my wife and I are government statisticians, and so far, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of a possible date for us to come back, and I’m totally good with that. I’ve been at least as productive at home these past two months as I was at the office in the ‘before times,’ which I really didn’t expect to be.
Your location says Maryland, so I’m assuming you’re either near DC or Baltimore, which has some of the longest, roughest commutes in the nation. It stands to reason that you’d be more productive.
I returned to the office today. The rules that were issued were that we would come to the office in teams, alternating weeks, so that about 10 people are there at a time. We would be temperature checked at the door. Non-employees not allowed in. Masks required in any common area (hallway, workroom, etc.), no group lunches, no meetings.
How it actually went:
I got there this morning and there was no one to take my temperature. I went looking for the guy with the thermometer. Most people had masks, but very few were using them correctly. The either had them down so they didn’t cover their noses, or were pulling them down when talking to someone. One woman came by my office to talk to me about something and didn’t have a mask at all. I told her to go back to her office and email me. I finally emailed management and had them send out a clarification on the masks, but half the people here don’t even think the coronavirus is anything to be concerned about. There was one thing of wipes on the copier, but I didn’t see anyone (except me) use them.
This is going to be a disaster. I finally just went into my office an closed the door.
Update from my post (#2) above:
My wife’s workplace has agreed to continue work-from-home as an option, but wants to see a partial return to the physical office. Workers were sent home with complete sets of multi-terminal workstations (they’re not using their home PCs) and are allowed to keep them at home indefinitely. Although management is required to be present for some weekly gatherings, worker-bees are allowed to self-sort into partial-week shifts and limit this to as-needed basis. The biggest change is an edict that anyone facing difficulties getting to the office is allowed to stay home and work. This includes personal illness, child and senior care issues, even meeting home-repair folks and is pretty open-ended. They proved the workflow was not only sustained, but measurably increased by letting people stay home and self-coordinate, so upper management has decided to keep this option going forward.
Mizpullin has decreed a very minimal return for her department, with a non-negotiable mask requirement. The company has obtained a supply of good disposable masks and is covering the cost for everyone.
Most of the news from this pandemic has been bad, but this is a small bright spot.
No no no no. A mask like that should only be used for a total of one day. You are breathing into all day and it collects your own bacteria and flem and sneezes. Plus it collects what ever is in the air around you. That and you will not be operating on people, no need for an N95 level mask.
A bandanna that you can run through the wash is just fine for your situation as long as everyone else is wearing them as well when they come within six feet of you (further if they are singing!).
Walked about 18 miles the last three days at my restaurant. Had to wear a mask*, paper menus (unnessecery. Laminated menus sanitized are just as well. After all, the tables arnt disposable and they are contaminated way more then a menu you handle for five minutes is.) and tables six feet away from each other are the only diff between today and last year. It was packed.
*I don’t care what those FB memes say supposedly written by ‘expert nurses’… I. Am. Not. Getting. Enough. Oxygen. My body is not getting its lactic acid flushed out and I can barely walk at the end of my shift. Took off my mask most i could last night and things were fairly better.
My own office I restarted in late April. I have told my associates to stay home, unless called. Temperature checks for everyone and no outside visitors. Sorry, no exceptions. I stay in my office for the most part and masks are mandatory.
So, fairly easily done. Its a law office and my word is…errr Law… there.
My parents run a software company, not far from my own office and since they are both in the vulnerable group, they have been working from home.I have been going there to see how its going and the office manager is running things. Its a 100 person office and 4/5 are in. mandatory masks, regular cleaning of all surfaces, fittings and fixtures, social distancing enforced, more recently by adding plastic barriers between desks, temperature checks, sanitizers everywhere. Outside visitors limited and packages disinfected.
The people there have been fairly cooperative, no one like having “the owners son” being on their heads, yet they have followed everything I asked. The afore-mentioned office manager is ex-military and is pretty firm on enforcing rules.
Despite everything, I still see masks down, we have had to send a person home, twice for not following the rules.
What C3, said upthread, the solution is stricter enforcement and harsher discipline. Maybe its not strictly in the HR handbook, but these are different times.
The mask will impede the air coming through and make it harder to breathe. It might be comparable to working out at high altitudes. In fact, athletes wear masks to limit their air intake for just this purpose. It puts stress on the cardiovascular system, which then adapts to provide more performance on less oxygen. It’s not at all surprising that you feel this effect, but you should notice it gets easier over time as your body adapts. One side effect is that you may notice you have much more performance when you’re not wearing the mask. If you do vigorous exercise without a mask, you may find your performance has improved since the mask forced your body to make maximum use of the oxygen it can get.
Hmmm… just a thought… but I wonder if this kind of oxygen adaptation would help if you actually got sick from the virus. Since oxygen deprivation is common with CV19, perhaps getting your body adapted to a lower oxygen environment could allow it to be healthier even as the virus is killing off lung cells. Since your body is already adapted to a lower-oxygen environment, maybe the reduced lung capacity wouldn’t have as much of an effect. In any case, being healthier is correlated with better outcomes, so anything you can do to increase your fitness will help if you get sick.
Doesn’t work. It’s the living at high altitude that results in adaptation. In fact, working out at high altitude can result in lower performance due to the lower force production. (it’s actually more complex than that but I’m not going into details here.)
I know that athletes do things like train at high altitude and use training masks to reduce their air intake when practicing. There’s even the Olympic training center in Denver. If those things did not help performance, why are the athletes doing those things?
Living at altitude. Facilities and coaching. Also, if you’re planning to compete at altitude, you need to do some training at altitude.
The ideal is to “live high, train low”. Impractical to undoable most places.
There are systems from a CPAP type mask to sealing an entire house (more common is a single room or a tent over the bed) that create a low pressure environment for living in.
it’s not the low intake that counts, it’s the low pressure the body reacts to.
Annnnd my calf ruptured/popped near the end of my shift. I warned them they were gonna break me.