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In Germany a friend of mine refused to go to a meeting at a client's office where someone tested positive and HR threatened him because he was violating his emp
by voqv 7y ago
In Germany a friend of mine refused to go to a meeting at a client's office where someone tested positive and HR threatened him because he was violating his employment contract.
- rorykoehler 7y agoAm in Germany. Everyone is acting like nothing is happening. It's infuriating.
- hef19898 7y agoWell, in Bavaria at least, people are forced to self-quarantine for two weeks if they had contact to people from o where in high risk areas. Same goes for children in schools and kindergardens. Some schools are closed already. Corporate travel came more or less to a halt and soccer games are most likely taking place without spectators. So yes, just business as usual.
- rorykoehler 7y agoI'm in Berlin and people are making zero effort to alter their usual patterns.
- hef19898 7y agoAs of yesterday, Berlin is no way a risk zone as of now. So why should they? Doesnt mean you can't change your behaviour, so.
- rorykoehler 7y agoThat is an incredibly short sighted view. We need to be proactive not reactive. This virus is here and it's here in a big way. Positive cases are not the full picture. Median incubation period is 5 days. Italy is a warning and we're not taking it. We should all be in quarantine now so this doesn't get out of hand rather than wait for it to become uncontrollable and then trying to de-escalate it.
- hef19898 7y agoOk, so you suggest every single person in Germany to be quarantined. Whether they have symptoms or not. Now that's what I call an over reaction.
- esistgut 7y agoThis kind of thinking is exactly the mistake China and Italy did. Please, I beg you to learn from our errors.
- coldtea 7y agoWell, let's just wait for a million dead like they expect in Italy then... that would be a proper, timid, reaction...
- shadow28 7y agoYou just pulled that number out of your ass, didn't you?
- coldtea 7y agoAndrea Ricciardi, Professor of Hygiene and adviser to the Ministry of Health: "The most frightening point is the pitted figures on how much the virus can spread. the curves of the graphs elaborated by the epidemiologists and not only in Italy: according to the models, it could strike until 60% of the population, which means that according to the mortality rates there could be a million deaths only in Italy." Feel happy now about the ad-hominem?
- coldtea 7y agoHere's another, this time for the US: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/up-to-150-million-americans-are-expected-to-contract-the-coronavirus-congressional-doctor-says.html?fbclid=IwAR2nhJ-w4TcECk7-OWvrsbN65_MU4z533Hj_RkBpw60OCw3tT15VPujeJCk https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/up-to-150-million-americans-...
- rglullis 7y ago"Most turkeys in farms are super happy, healthy and fat until some days before Thanksgiving. Why should they act like they could be slaughtered?"
- hef19898 7y agoBecause turkeys are always fat. Happy and healthy is a diiferent story. And they get slaughtered, becasue that is the reason the are at the farm in the first place. Using that analogy for a disease is jst plain wrong.
- rglullis 7y agoBefore this conversation goes any further, perhaps you should read The Black Swan? Or if you don't like my turkey reference, let's stay in the realm of technology. Pop quiz: who said "Only the paranoid survive?"
- ximi 7y agoBecause it's only a matter of time before the virus will be in Berlin (if it's not already). Nobody is suggesting people should quarantine themselves in Berlin, but avoiding crowded spaces, not touching your face and frequently washing your hands doesn't seem at all unreasonable.
- rorykoehler 7y ago40 confirmed cases here.
- ulfw 7y agoWow. And you magically know that how, exactly?
- hef19898 7y agoMay have changed, but yesterday Berlin wasn't listed in the high risk regions that was shared by Bavarian health authorities. Didn't check today, so. EDIT: According to officials, one county in germany is considered high risk (link in German): https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Risikogebiete.html https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus...
- rorykoehler 7y agoIt's futile arguing that the risk is low because the officials classified it as such when I stated that I disagree with their risk assessment and management strategy. If I look at a risk matrix I would classify the risk impact of not quarantining as significant to disastrous and the likelihood as very likely. That puts the current situation in all of the world at the highest risk. Risk matrix example: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Fleming3/publication/260010346/figure/fig1/AS:297248975015943@1447881086616/Example-of-how-different-scenarios-fit-within-a-risk-matrix-4.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Fleming3/publicat...
- hef19898 7y agoOne last comment because you clearly seem to prefer to live in your own world. Assessing risk the way you do has one big issue (it actually has multiple but let's stick with one). When you put Corona in the disastrous category you habe to provide reasons for doing so, otherwise it is just a gut feeling. And by classifying it as disastrous, you run into issues when classifying stuff like Ebola for example. Over-classifying has that effect on measuring systems, that's why you need teams of experts from multiple disciplines to do it properly. And would have to do so at multiple sub levels for each criteria. The whole purpose is to take gut feeling and emotions out of the process. Doing it alone makes the whole exercise pointless. Now, take that whatever way you want.
- luckylion 7y agoThat's Berlin for you though. I think you need to have a much higher threshold for disgust and fear to consider living there. I'm close to Hamburg. We've had two or three confirmed cases in the county. Patients are quarantined at home and stable. Schools have been temporarily closed, but reopened now. The administration is taking it very serious and people are stocking up on everything, including cake.
- cylinder 7y agoFive employees of DB now have it so maybe they'll pay attention now?
- hef19898 7y agoBelieve it or not, they paid attention already before that.
- chefkoch 7y agoMy neighbor is a teacher and her school is closed dir the next 2 weeks
- silvester23 7y agoI have a very different experience. I see lots of hand sanitizer everywhere, people are washing their hands constantly, my employer has relaxed rules for working from home (i.e. do it as much as you feel is feasible and reasonable), some schools are closed, people generally avoid crowded trains and buses. This is in NRW, however, where we have by far the most confirmed cases in Germany. Might be different in other places.
- rambojazz 7y agoThe entire world seems to be acting like that, it's not unique to Germany. Nobody pays attention because the numbers are low, and it's not worth stopping human activities. Then you wake up one day with thousands of cases.
- camillomiller 7y agoItalian living in Berlin here. Same same.
- hef19898 7y agoWell, if they did that is more or less ground for legal action. Managers have something "Fürsorgepflicht", meaning htey have to take care employees are safe. Usually things go the other way round, your employer would not allow you to travel. depending on how long friend is employed by this company, the resulting leal case could be rather expensive for the employer. Your friend would still have to look for another job, so...
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoIf they closed the office, cleaned it, and tested everyone else, it would be reasonable. But I guess they didn't do this. Which really our society is not set up for. Actually Covid-19 cleaning solutions would be a temporary business to get into.
- stOneskull 7y agoi think the focus should be on keeping immune systems up. having supplies of water and vitamin c available. stress-reduction is good for the immune system too. i think it's time to assume we're all going to get it and how best to ride through it.
- majewsky 7y agoCounter-datapoint: My employer (SAP) has had one case of COVID-19 among their German workforce. The entire office building has been closed down for disinfection and the employees there are asked to work from home for the quarantine period. All other employees (worldwide afaik) can work from home without informing their manager beforehand (as is the usual policy). All non-essential business travel is prohibited, with exceptions requiring high-tier management approval. Only two examples for exceptions were given: travelling to a data center to access physical hardware, and travelling to a customer site to access intranet services. EDIT: I realize that this response is easier to do for SAP than for the average company since we are all working in front of computers anyway the entire time, with only 1-2% of tasks tied to physical objects (paper forms, server hardware etc.).
- koliber 7y agoThe German ratio of infections to deaths is very low compared to other countries. It may be too early to judge, but given how it's unfolding, this speaks positively about how Germany is responding to the epidemic.
- camillomiller 7y agoIt’s a point of discussion in Europe. They might be skewing the data because they are willfully not testing dead patients with comorbidities. e.g. a late stage cancer patient dies with a respiratory syndrome? Italy tests the body and that person counts against the total coronavirus death toll if the result is positive. Germany doesn’t make the test.
- chalst 7y agoI can report the same behaviour of an office of a pharmaceutical firm here in Berlin.