Blog: Reversion
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Reversion - Saturday, June 27, 2020
In last week's post, I mentioned the challenges of working in the office during the current crisis but that I hoped to stick it out for a couple days. Well, after two days total I decided to revert to working from home. Not having much that I could eat and having to wear a mask the whole time in the office were too burdensome (and half the time while I was at my desk with nobody around, I either wasn't wearing the mask or didn't have it covering my nose).
Everyone else on my team had already elected to continue working from home. And this week, due to the rising number of coronavirus cases both nationally and statewide, Pure decided to roll back the reintegration plan and require all employees, except essential staff, to revert to working from home again.
Today, with 44,782 new cases reported, the US set the single-day record for new cases for the fifth day in a row. For comparison, the number of daily new cases was less than half this number at the beginning of the month. Cases are spiking in western and southern states, California included. But it's encouraging to see that New York, where things seemed out of control in April, has appeared to have flattened the curve since then.
The spike in cases is likely due to states reopening, though people not taking as many precautions is probably a large contributor. One need only look around to see the signs. When we visited Santana Row mid-June, it felt like there were way too many people there, and many people didn't seem to be socially distancing or wearing masks. When I went running at Rancho San Antonio (an extremely popular hiking spot) last weekend, the trails were crowded and only about 25% of people were wearing a mask. It seems like the fact that we're reopening, plus some quarantine fatigue, has caused people to let their guard down, and now we're starting to see the consequences of that. Half of the new cases in recent weeks have been in adults under the age of 35, a worrying trend.
Personally, I'm not taking chances. I keep a cloth mask with me when running in an area where social distancing is not always possible, and I'll put it on when someone is approaching. And when going into stores, I've started wearing an N95 mask and a cloth mask over it - partly for the double protection, and partly to cover up the N95 mask because there seems to be a stigma against non-medical personnel having/wearing them due to shortages. We bought two N95 masks 2 years ago when NorCal was experiencing large-scale wildfires, but I don't want people getting the wrong idea.
At the current rate, I expect the crisis to get a lot worse before it starts getting better. Young people might continue not socially distancing and unknowingly catch the virus and spread it to others. We could be past the inflection point where the exponential spread of the virus really starts to accelerate. States could scale back their reopening efforts and shut down again, causing new economic woes that compound the earlier ones. Bay Area companies could very well require employees to work from home for the rest of the year. There's so much uncertainty now. But, places like New York (where all parts of the state have reopened to some degree) are proof that things can turn around, but it requires everyone to work together.
Everyone else on my team had already elected to continue working from home. And this week, due to the rising number of coronavirus cases both nationally and statewide, Pure decided to roll back the reintegration plan and require all employees, except essential staff, to revert to working from home again.
Today, with 44,782 new cases reported, the US set the single-day record for new cases for the fifth day in a row. For comparison, the number of daily new cases was less than half this number at the beginning of the month. Cases are spiking in western and southern states, California included. But it's encouraging to see that New York, where things seemed out of control in April, has appeared to have flattened the curve since then.
The spike in cases is likely due to states reopening, though people not taking as many precautions is probably a large contributor. One need only look around to see the signs. When we visited Santana Row mid-June, it felt like there were way too many people there, and many people didn't seem to be socially distancing or wearing masks. When I went running at Rancho San Antonio (an extremely popular hiking spot) last weekend, the trails were crowded and only about 25% of people were wearing a mask. It seems like the fact that we're reopening, plus some quarantine fatigue, has caused people to let their guard down, and now we're starting to see the consequences of that. Half of the new cases in recent weeks have been in adults under the age of 35, a worrying trend.
Personally, I'm not taking chances. I keep a cloth mask with me when running in an area where social distancing is not always possible, and I'll put it on when someone is approaching. And when going into stores, I've started wearing an N95 mask and a cloth mask over it - partly for the double protection, and partly to cover up the N95 mask because there seems to be a stigma against non-medical personnel having/wearing them due to shortages. We bought two N95 masks 2 years ago when NorCal was experiencing large-scale wildfires, but I don't want people getting the wrong idea.
At the current rate, I expect the crisis to get a lot worse before it starts getting better. Young people might continue not socially distancing and unknowingly catch the virus and spread it to others. We could be past the inflection point where the exponential spread of the virus really starts to accelerate. States could scale back their reopening efforts and shut down again, causing new economic woes that compound the earlier ones. Bay Area companies could very well require employees to work from home for the rest of the year. There's so much uncertainty now. But, places like New York (where all parts of the state have reopened to some degree) are proof that things can turn around, but it requires everyone to work together.