Plus just the restrictions on worldwide travel probably play a part in reducing travel from one country to the next. People talk about mask wearing and social distancing and stuff, but sometimes seem to forget about travel restrictions as part of the formula.
It seems like a lot more people took the flu shot last year too. Where I work, we had multiple drive up clinics that were very busy, and we were doing them in the office like gangbusters.
Other things that are keeping anti-maskers safe, other than those of us wearing masks and travel bans, is just that there’s fewer people going where they are. Fewer people all at once at the hair salon, fewer people at the bar (even though I wear a mask I’m not stepping foot into a bar for trivia night!), fewer people showing up for allowable indoor events or just fewer people allowed to be there.
Also I do think a percentage of anti-maskers are smart enough to “protect their own” whether they have full-fledged Covid or just the sniffles. My cousin is an anti-masker but his mom has a slew of Covid-deadly conditions, and he’s smart enough to stay away from her with his germs. Lots of those anti-maskers talk big but they still don’t want to chance it with their mama.
Flu is a symptom of the flu? Huh?
Ha! The other one is redundancy.
I meant fever. Sorry.
That’s cool. 
What this thread makes me think about is how flu and other diseases will become more widespread again once COVID abates to the point where we become lackadaisical about preventive measures again.
We all might permanently become a bit more careful about hand-washing and steering clear of people who appear sick. But what I’m specifically concerned about is the return to Capitalism Gone Wild where sick employees are forced to go to work and sick children are forced to go to school because their parents have no other way to care for them because they have to work.
Until we have the social protections of civilized countries (universal child care, paid time-off when ill, universal health insurance) we will not be able to adequately provide good public health.
Does your universal child care have some provision for sick children? There’s still nothing to do for sick children other than a parent to stay home, or someone to be called in to stay with the child, as long as the child needs to be kept home from school or daycare.
Yeah that’s true. In those cases the parent could miss work to care for the sick child. Of course they would be paid during this just as if it was themselves who was ill.
I honestly think a more flexible work-from-home is as important as paid sick live. As mentioned earlier, a lot of the time a person is not at all too sick to work, but might be contagious. Not all jobs can be done remotely, but many can, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if those people cpuld just WFH as needed?
The company I work for actually does this on its own, albeit for a limited number of hours per year. They have what they call “Health PTO (Paid Time Off)”. As long as you self-certify that you’re using the time for healthcare-related reasons, whether your own or a member of your household or immediate family, you can take unscheduled paid time off without approval.
I can’t imagine it’s remotely as important. The majority of people can’t work from home. Even teachers, once in-class starts up. What are you going to do? Set up a monitor at the front of the class?
I wouldn’t say it’s as important, but to say it’s not remotely as important is a little dismissive. It’s true that a majority of workers wouldn’t be able to take advantage of a work-from-home policy, but for people who could, it’s very important. That fact that people usually do push themselves to work when they are sick and manage it, means that, in fact, most people could work with a typical illness. You still want them home, and not spreading their germs around.
Aside for the consideration of the fact that the whole office doesn’t want a week of misery, there are bound to be a few people who are immuno-compromised, or live with someone who is, and could become seriously ill from a “simple” cold.
Well, I must agree that for people that it’s important to, it’s important.
No @FigNorton, that’s a mischaracterization. Try this one on for size:
For people who can work from home it’s very important. For people who can’t work from home, it’s irrelevant. It’s a hard barbell distribution; the opposite of the usual bell curve.
As a statistic about society as a whole, the sum of X people with “very important” and Y people with “irrelevant” may well average to “better than nothing, but not highly effective overall”.
But for the affected WFH individuals and their immediate co-workers and customers, the difference between “WFH while sniffling” and “go in to work while sniffling” will be huge. Entire companies, departments, or schools could be spared the continuous rolling illnesses that characterize so many winters in the USA.
I also think that one thing we’ve learned is that a lot more of us can WFH than we ever expected. I am a teacher. They don’t have to “roll in a monitor”. My kids all have chrome books; I can post a video lesson and be available on chat all period for questions while monitoring their actual work on Google docs in real time. I do this every day, right now… They need someone to supervise them, still, but we no longer need to lose a day of learning.
So, no need for substitute teachers unless you’re too sick to type?
I think American society would rally around a law that required companies to offer decent sick leave. I don’t think it would rally around a law requiring companies to offer work from home days. How about you? That’s how I measure their importance.
You measure the importance of a proposed public health measure based on how popular you think it will be with the public? The same public where a good 40% of them think COVID is a hoax, masks do nothing, etc.?
I’m done.
That’s a heck of a mischaracterization too. It’s a more useful and broadly applicable policy, thus it would be more popular.
It’s also a lot more doable. I can’t imagine how you could make rules requiring work from home days. I mean, some jobs would require awesome internet connections, some could just require a phone. How much of your job can be done remotely? It’s a mess to legislate, istm.
It wouldn’t have to be globally mandated, but there are many jobs which can be done reasonably well at home. Many office workers can often do their work at home just about the same as in the office. It would be useful if there was the concept of “semi-sick” days where the employee could WFH when they felt just a little under the weather or had a sick child to take care of. It wouldn’t have to be an all or nothing situation. Rather than taking a day off from work with an actual sick day, the symptomatic employee just works from home still does their normal work without risking the other employees. This could be more of a corporate cultural change rather than government intervention.
Something that really does need government intervention is the “doctor’s note” requirement for sick days from employers who don’t offer health insurance. This is common in low-paying and hourly jobs. A sick employee who needs to take time off will typically be required to get a doctor’s note stating that they were sick. Aside from the time and hassle that takes, the cost of getting the note can be relatively high. Not many people will want to spend a day’s income to get a note for a sickness that may only last a few days. So rather than taking time off, the sick employee will go to work and infect workers and customers. I think it would be very beneficial if employers were required to offer a no-cost way to get a doctor’s note if they required one for taking sick leave. As it is, the current situation is essentially guaranteeing that sick employees continue coming into work.