Yes, and whose bright idea was that?
I can totally see that. Two people WFH should have two dedicated spaces where they can focus & spread out. All too many of us who have downsized (raises her hand) simply don’t have the room without cluttering the entire house.
Husband and I did some WFH simultaneously. It wasn’t ideal. Sympathies, deb922
I’m thankful that when my dad looked at our first concept for the addition to our house in 2008, he said, “I think you should make the office bigger.” Very wise! It’s 28’ x 15’, large enough that we can spread out. And we use our old office in the basement for storage.
@emilybee thanks for the link to the story about the surge in Austin. I have forwarded it to my dad. I pointed out the increase is not just due to testing since hospitalizations are also up.
Would HVAC contractors be getting any business from workplaces wanting to upgrade their HVAC systems to increase air flow and/or improve filtration?
I am even more depressed by ths week’s Economist, which reports that in the UK, up to 40% of the life years saved in the pandemic are offset by the enormous life years lost due to delayed diagnosis and treatment of cancer cases.
I completely agree with you. I think we can do better. Hopefully in the future we will take lessons learned from this event and do a better job dealing with ALL FACETS of this pandemic or the next one. Economic, health, education, mental health, etc should all be considered.
Epidemiology isn’t physics. It can’t make precise predictions. Its predictions depend on human behavior after all. Models are continuously calibrated based on new and updated data. Different models also take into account different factors differently. So it isn’t surprising predictions vary from model to model and from day to day from the same model.
100k+ souls lost in just over 3 months. Unfathonable. The vignettes o the news of just a few are so tragic.
That’s especially problematic in the UK given that they already suffer from delays in cancer treatment during normal times. Ouch.
How many lives does the Economist think were saved in the UK by the stay at home order?
The question is, are they testing more people? I know in Maryland they have recently been testing more people. If testing more people case numbers will likely rise faster. I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.
According to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Newly confirmed cases totaled 599, breaking the record of 528 set a week earlier. But the percent of Wednesday’s newly reported tests that came back positive for the coronavirus was lower, at 5.8%, whereas on May 20 it was 8%.”
For future pandemics, we’ll also know how much the economy gets hurt from opening up (due to virus spread) to compare it to shutting down. We’ll be able to compare Norway/New Zealand/etc to Sweden/US/etc.
No one knows the answers now. It’s all theories and time will tell. We should know for the future. For that reason, it’s good that different places are trying different things.
@roycroftmom that is my trigger! On the local news I’d see story after story over the last few weeks of women being told lumpectomies can wait, a man with kidney cancer having a recurrence but being told it’s ok to delay his surgery - infuriating!
Well the governor of Maryland today announced we are moving to his phase 1b on Friday. I had hoped for phase 2 but hopefully that comes next week.
So as of this coming Friday at 5pm we will be allowed to have limited outside seating at restaurants, outdoor swimming pools to a certain percentage of occupancy, some youth camps with restrictions, drive-in movie theaters (I think there’s one in the whole state). I personally have been lobbying for outdoor dining so am happy to hear that. If things go well he says perhaps in a week we can move to phase 2 (fingers crossed).
Now, he has left these moves up to individual counties. Counties can be more strict but cannot be more lenient. This has caused some local issues but luckily my county has opened to the full extent he has allowed. Thankful for each easing of the restrictions.
I have been working this entire time on-site at a military installation except for 6 days in early April. My work shut down and then have gradually opened back up. We are disinfecting surfaces, washing hands, social distancing whenever possible and only wearing masks when needing to work within 6 feet of others. With many hundreds of people working daily we haven’t seen cases I’m ready for more businesses outside of mine to get more back to normal.
Ok, that shows me they did in fact do more testing. Looks like about 4000 more total test in the latest week. The percentage positive went down which is a good thing.
The Maine governor has pushed back the opening date for restaurants in the remaining three counties. They were supposed to open up Monday. She’s looking at the increase in new cases and hospitalizations. I know why she’s doing it, but wow, a lot of restaurant owners feel like they’ve been blindsided with only five days notice. 
Hopefully they didn’t erroneously combine the number of Covid tests and the number of antibody tests like they did in some states, which artificially inflated the number of tests reported and artificially decreased the percentage of positive cases. https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2020/05/11-states-including-virginia-acknowledge-mixing-results-of-viral-and-antibody-tests/amp/
That’s got to be hard on everyone. At least she’s focusing on individual counties and not doing a blanket rule like some places. So the numbers driving her are individual county numbers? Are more tests being performed driving up case numbers?
Yes, but hospitalizations are going up, also.