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Tim Cook Offers Work From Home to Most Apple Staff Amid Coronavirus Concerns
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False.
Exactly. If everyone acted like this during flu season 60k people wouldn’t die every year from the flu. But here we are......with a handful of deaths in comparison and there is mass hysteria.
This isn’t just about Apple allowing exceptions given the conditions. I think other companies/organizations will follow for those who actually have the opportunity that can work direct from home. If the situation continues to worsen, there will be all kinds of adjustments/alterations made where companies are trying to ‘safeguard’ their employees, and rightfully so, because that _should_ be the priority.
Read that second screenshot you posted.
"possibly even a full pneumonia"
He could replace pneumonia with any number of other conditions like bronchitis and that statement would still be technically "true". "80% reported mild symptoms? Possibly that means pulmonary embolism" He's literally contributing to panic by exaggerating the interpretation.
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As long as the emoji department keeps pumping out the jams, we’re golden.
Too bad this doesn't apply to eh retail staff... who most likely will get the virus and can't afford to fight it due to low hourly wages..
Can agree with this I've worked an office job he last two year where I had to be in on time and at my desk. Recently moved within the business to a Automation Development sort of role, I'm still generally expected to go to the office but I don't have hardline start time (I can work from home but it's usually impractical). It's nice getting up when I want, casually having breakfast and making my way to work. I feel much more calm about it. Miss my train. Oh well get the next one.
Too bad the retail employees are treated like criminals with the bag searches though eh?
The same guy sent Chinese workers back to staff their retail stores during the peak of the Coronavirus crisis.
Today I'm working from home, the situation is pretty serious here in Milan. Other European countries and the USA can learn from our mistakes, we waited too much before putting the region on lockdown and the virus spread too fast.
If you can work from home, do it. Try avoiding crowded places. There is no need to panic, but everyone should be considerate and responsible. Even if you're young and won't be directly affected by the virus if you get it chances are somebody in your family will. A grandparent, and old uncle. If they get the virus they may die, we should protect the elderly and who has preexisting medical conditions.
Hospitals here are full of people, they just opened a military one to civilians and the government said it may use hotels to put people in quarantine. Bars and restaurants are going to face some hard times as people stay at home, same for small retail shops. It is going to be a huge economic loss for us, we'll make it but we should have taken drastic measure sooner.
If you can work from home, do it. Try avoiding crowded places. There is no need to panic, but everyone should be considerate and responsible. Even if you're young and won't be directly affected by the virus if you get it chances are somebody in your family will. A grandparent, and old uncle. If they get the virus they may die, we should protect the elderly and who has preexisting medical conditions.
Hospitals here are full of people, they just opened a military one to civilians and the government said it may use hotels to put people in quarantine. Bars and restaurants are going to face some hard times as people stay at home, same for small retail shops. It is going to be a huge economic loss for us, we'll make it but we should have taken drastic measure sooner.
Yea I think it's insane more businesses don't have compressed schedules like three or four day weeks and telecommuting by now. We had this stuff like 20 years ago places I worked.
One of the other good things about telecommute is you could be sick and still work from home but not be able to work at work. You may not be fit to drive or don't want to run to the bathroom at work like 20x sick, but you could be fine with that at home as long as you get your workload for the day done by the target.
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Exactly this or food service. And they really don't have a choice legally to come to work sick.Too bad this doesn't apply to eh retail staff... who most likely will get the virus and can't afford to fight it due to low hourly wages..
The datasets between influenza and coronavirus mortality are very different, with the latter being much more limited (as explained in in article [3] in my original reply). But to discount the currently limited dataset entirely is a mistake. According to Gabriel Leung, chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, a mortality rate of 1% is possible with milder cases taken into account [1]. And, per that same article, “Even if the general fatality rate is as low as 1% [...] the death toll would be massive.” Another expert, Christopher Mores (global health professor at George Washington University), stated that “Even with a high transmission rate and the low case fatality rate, that still becomes a massive number of ill and fatal cases” [4].
Let’s do some quick math. Assume the 1% mortality rate is overinflated, and the actual mortality rate is 50% lower than that (0.5%). The U.S. population in 2019 was 328 million [2]. If 60% of the U.S. population were infected with coronavirus (which is possible per [1] if not properly contained), and 0.5% of those infected end up dying, that’s 984,000 people dead. Compare that to the flu, with deaths numbering from a recent low of 12,000 (2011-2012) to a high of 56,000 (during 2012-2013) In the U.S. [3].
Furthermore, the fact that many people in the U.S. who may be infected are not being tested makes the situation EVEN SCARIER, not less so. Though untested cases mean the actual mortality rate is lower, it also means that containment of the pandemic is MUCH less feasible [5].
Your original post was “Can we get outraged during flu season too?”, which I take a sarcastic way to say something to the effect of “the coronavirus is no worse than the seasonal flu and is overhyped.” Spreading sentiment like this is irresponsible in a public health emergency if not backed up by evidence. Do you have any actual evidence that coronavirus is no more deadly than influenza? Please share it.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...infection-could-reach-60-of-worlds-population
[2] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2019/national-state-estimates.html
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2017-2018.htm
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/04/coronavirus-flu-comparison/
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/global-...could-thwart-containment-efforts-experts-warn
"most" Apple staff is demonstrably false - more than half of Apple's employees are employed retail at Apple Stores. Those employees by the definition of their jobs can't work from home.
All these news stories always exclude the workers who are paid the least and have the least perks. "Uber telling all employees to work from home!" ignores the fact that there are orders of magnitude more people working "through" Uber that are completely unaffected by this "work from home" order.
Hopefully Apple is offering better-than-industry-and-way-better-than-legal-minimums sick time and family leave to their retail employees.
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Because that is a standard flu year - and the vast overwhelming majority of those who die from the flu are people with compromised immune systems - people who generally aren't "in the workforce" (the very young, the very old, the very sick.)
The flu is a known commodity. We know when it is going to spread each year, we know how to prevent it (vaccines,) we know how to treat it.
This new virus is more virulent than the normal flu, has a higher death rate than the normal flu, and there is no vaccine.
By contrast to the normal flu - if the same number of people in the US catch this as usually catch the flu (again - there is a vaccine for the flu, there isn't for this, it's quite conceivable that MORE people will catch it than the flu,) we can expect 750,000 deaths from it this year.
All these news stories always exclude the workers who are paid the least and have the least perks. "Uber telling all employees to work from home!" ignores the fact that there are orders of magnitude more people working "through" Uber that are completely unaffected by this "work from home" order.
Hopefully Apple is offering better-than-industry-and-way-better-than-legal-minimums sick time and family leave to their retail employees.
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Because that is a standard flu year - and the vast overwhelming majority of those who die from the flu are people with compromised immune systems - people who generally aren't "in the workforce" (the very young, the very old, the very sick.)
The flu is a known commodity. We know when it is going to spread each year, we know how to prevent it (vaccines,) we know how to treat it.
This new virus is more virulent than the normal flu, has a higher death rate than the normal flu, and there is no vaccine.
By contrast to the normal flu - if the same number of people in the US catch this as usually catch the flu (again - there is a vaccine for the flu, there isn't for this, it's quite conceivable that MORE people will catch it than the flu,) we can expect 750,000 deaths from it this year.
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If the United States made it illegal for anyone to leave their home for the next two to three months, we MIGHT be able to stem this outbreak.
At the current rate of infection, most of the world will be infected by the end of July. Millions will die who didn't need to because the U.S. failed to act when it could have made a difference.
If you are someone who needs regular access to medical care, I sure hope you aren't an American. Insured or not, the medical system here is about to collapse.
Now, who should be held responsible for this public health disaster in America? Is there someone in charge of the U.S. government's response?
At the current rate of infection, most of the world will be infected by the end of July. Millions will die who didn't need to because the U.S. failed to act when it could have made a difference.
If you are someone who needs regular access to medical care, I sure hope you aren't an American. Insured or not, the medical system here is about to collapse.
Now, who should be held responsible for this public health disaster in America? Is there someone in charge of the U.S. government's response?
That's why most employers who allow remote access to their corporate networks provide VPN to their employees working from home.
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Worldwide, the yearly influenza virus kills between 291,000 to 646,000 people.
The Coronavirus in China is currently diminishing rapidly with 200 new cases last week compared to 10x that the week before and 17x that the week before that.
But, yes, concern and precautions are most assuredly warranted with COVID-19.
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Hi rgbrock1 - thanks for sharing those statistics. Please refer to my 2nd reply after in the comment you quoted [1], and Anonymous Freak’s comment below it [2]. Coronavirus is potentially much deadlier than influenza if not properly contained. In the U.S., it increasingly looks as though containment is not feasible.
[1] https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...id-coronavirus-concerns.2225926/post-28269243
[2] https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...id-coronavirus-concerns.2225926/post-28269268
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Hi Jonnyb098, you’re only considering the “handful” of current deaths and ignoring the potential of coronavirus to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. if not properly contained.
Please refer to my previous posts [1], [2], and Anonymous Freak’s post [3]. Coronavirus is very different from influenza and potentially much deadlier. While outright panic is never helpful, concern (more so than seasonal influenza) is absolutely warranted.
[1] https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...id-coronavirus-concerns.2225926/post-28268250
[2] https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...id-coronavirus-concerns.2225926/post-28269243
[3] https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...id-coronavirus-concerns.2225926/post-28269268
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Something like 50%+ of Apple's engineering workforce already works from home and doesn't need to come into "the office." Apple's HQ in NYC is mostly a ghost town in a few floors of a rented office building where there aren't many people present.
Caveat being SOFTWARE engineers. If you're a hardware person and need to show up at work, then it's a bit different. Probably the custodial staff can't phone in their jobs either.
A lot of hardware people can probably get their work done from home, too. Certainly the chip design teams can.
Lots of possibilities and assumptions with no definitive conclusion on what's the outcome. I mean, I can easily say, "Assume the mortality rate is extremely overinflated and the actual mortality rate is 80% lower" (sure that's more deadly but definitely not worthy of global-recession-deadly). It's "possible". Why is your assumption anymore accurate than mine? You're simply guessing.
Death toll for the flu is massive every year, but no one talks about that.
Why are you asking that question when I literally said in my previous post "I wouldn't put too much weight on that statistic to make any comparison against the flu?". Did you forget?
People are *aware* by now. No vaccine yet, keep proper hygiene, avoid crowds, quarantine yourself if feeling ill and go see a doc, etc... That's all. Anymore talk about this is just doing more harm than good.
Feel free to reply, but I will be avoiding your replies (and will be unsubscribing from this thread) because I feel like I'm simply adding fuel to the fire that shouldn't be burning at all. I suggest everyone should stop talking about it and move along now.