6 ms·

"Everyone we found to have Covid-19 had serious symptoms, so we don't want to waste money testing you if you don't!" I feel this is a trillion dollar mistake,

• trymas 7y ago
  > Self quarantine without a notice and hence without pay? If you have symptoms of _any_ illness you should always get a sick leave and stay at home. It does not matter if it's covid, seasonal flu or just a common cold - sick leave and stay at home.
  • uluyol 7y ago
    Unfortunately this is not an option for many people. I don't disagree with the sentiment - avoiding the spread of disease is good - but often the reward systems in place don't optimize for the best global outcomes.
    • ta999999171 7y ago
      So why do we keep accepting these conditions?
      • nordsieck 7y ago
        > So why do we keep accepting these conditions? Probably because the negative repercussions of that behavior are typically not very severe.
        • maigret 7y ago
          They actually cost a lot of money to businesses, but no one cares to track to show the ugly truth. Europe has a lot of data showing that going to work sick ends up costing much more than staying home, thus this is a irresponsible attitude - given you keep getting your pay of course.
    • rixed 7y ago
      Luckily we are born with "judgment" for all these cases were instincts or rewards do not point in the right direction. According to some, that's literally the reason d'etre of consciousness. I wish it worked better and I were not confined home right now.
      • romski 7y ago
        You sound like someone that works at a company with “unlimited pto” am I right?
      • vladvasiliu 7y ago
        Right. But how often does this actually happen in the real world ? And most importantly, what are we, as a society, ready to bet on the fact that not enough will make the "wrong" judgement ?
    • trymas 7y ago
      Where are you from? Where I live - I think I am even motivated to get sick leave. If I feel ill, I can get sick leave, with no time limits I am aware of [0], and as a reward I will get 80% [1] of my salary back for essentially doing nothing. IMHO it's a win/win. I will get well and be productive as soon as possible [2]. If it's a viral illness - my employer would be happy that I will not make dozens of other people ill. [0] I have not read the law, but I have never heard of anyone reaching that limit. You can stay ill for months and still be compensated. Of course after some long time, you'll probably be moved from sick leave to some kind of disability program, which sucks, but we are not talking about disabilities. [1] There's a cap for sick leave compensation, but unless you are earning _a lot_ it should be enough. [2] Personal anecdata, but personally common cold takes couple of days of rest to go away, if I try to be tough and won't rest - it may take couple of weeks before I feel well again. Better couple of days of 0 productivity, than couple of weeks of work simulation.
      • jeremysalwen 7y ago
        Wait till you hear about the health care system in the United States...
  • blahedo 7y ago
    I mean, sure, if you have sick leave. The above comment is perhaps aspirational, but otherwise it is woefully ignorant of the sad, sad state of US healthcare for most of its residents.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      It's a problem everywhere. Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery, not when you start coughing. Reasons include: there's only so much sick leave you can take, employers expect sick leave to be extremely rare and will "phase you out" if it isn't, getting a sick leave involves a visit to a doctor - which, like any visit to a healthcare facility processing sick people - comes with a risk of catching something even worse than what you came with. Every place on the planet needs to rethink how we handle infectious diseases. This requires both a cultural and legal shift, so that one can just not come to work when showing mild symptoms and not face any negative consequences. The market will not make this happen on its own. But this is a golden opportunity for the cultural shift - every society on this planet is going to be deeply scarred by SARS-CoV-2.
      • ElFitz 7y ago
        > getting a sick leave involves a visit to a doctor - which, like any visit to a healthcare facility processing sick people Remote doctor visits are starting to become a thing, now! Still don't know how they'll check our temperature, or issue us the sick leave paperwork. But hey! It's a start!
        • TeMPOraL 7y ago
          It's a huge opportunity and I hope it'll become popular everywhere. Like e.g. someone in my family has been noticing a rash on their hands recently and was getting worried. There's no way in hell I'll let them go visit a doctor now, and this kind of consultation is something perfectly suited for doing it over the Internet.
      • lm28469 7y ago
        > Sick leave is something you take when you have high fever or need surgery No, you take it when you have a problem big enough that it impacts your ability to work OR when you have a contagious disease. It's a lose/lose situation for a company if a single person gets half the company sick. > there's only so much sick leave you can take, employers expect sick leave to be extremely rare and will "phase you out" In the US sure, in Europe you can't fire someone for health reasons. In France you'll even get 66% of your salary for 3 years if you can't work at all for health related reasons.
  • watwut 7y ago
    I agree with you and practice that. But even in tech where work from home is an option and companies are rich enough to let people stay in bad anyway, in many companies it is treated as heroic to push through. Meaning, staying at home makes you seen as less comited and less passionate. Thus, people avoid it.
    • etrk 7y ago
      If you're working for a company where it's seen as "heroic" or "passionate" to come to work sick, you're in a toxic environment. I've had a couple co-workers who perhaps see themselves as heroic for coming to work sick, but everyone else resents them and wishes they would just stay home.
    • jopsen 7y ago
      > in many companies it is treated as heroic to push through. I disagree, I see myself as weak for staying home an extra day or two, but I don't see others as weak for doing the same. Today, I think the pressure to push through is mostly self-imposed. That's makes it no less real though. Personally, I don't like sitting in an office with someone who is coughing. During the current virus out break, I doubt anyone will appreciate you pushing though :)
    • alkonaut 7y ago
      Those environments are created by employees themselves. If you don't tell someone with a cold to go home, you are part of the problem.
      • watwut 7y ago
        By employees and by leadership. It absolutely does matter more what management does and how management acts then what random employees do.
• ncallaway 7y ago
  I'm not sure if you're quoting something or paraphrasing a position you disagree with. If it's a paraphrase, I'm not so sure it's a fair one. In the United States, for example, we are urging people not to be tested unless they have severe symptoms. The reason for that is not to save money, but it's for a lack of testing capacity. As a policy we would much prefer to be testing even the mild suspected cases. But we don't (currently) have the testing capacity to do so. So I think the lack of testing of mild cases (at least in the United States, and I suspect in other countries) is more a reflection of our rationing priorities than it is a reflection of our spending priorities. If the testing capacity becomes unconstrained and we (or other countries) still fail to test mild cases.
  • encoderer 7y ago
    The lack of testing capacity was a choice.
    • system2 7y ago
      Yes, we are 3 months late. These wasted last 3 months were critical after the December outbreak in China. I don't think it is the U.S. problem, Europeans didn't move a finger until the beginning of March either. Literally everyone watched China as if they could contain it properly. They didn't even tell people until it was very late.
    • ncallaway 7y ago
      Yes, absolutely. The lack of testing capacity was a total failure of the government. After the acute phase of the crisis, we should investigate what happened in great detail. But the advice about who should get a test is based on the testing capacity we have now. If we hadn't failed at testing capacity, we would be recommending more users get tested. So, if the critique is: "we failed to produce adequate testing capacity", then I absolutely agree. If the critique is instead: "The recommendation of who gets a test is bad", then I disagree. The recommendation is correct given the test capacity failing. The solution is not to recommend everyone gets tests, because they can't! Those tests are being rationed. The solution is to rapidly improve out testing capacity.
  • 7y ago
• taneq 7y ago
  How have South Korea's numbers meshed with this study? They've been testing very aggressively, surely if there was a huge asymptomatic population it would show up in their testing as well as Italy's?
• onetimemanytime 7y ago
  System is overwhelmed, can't really blame anyone since maintaining such, ready to spring, system would cost a lot of money. In an ideal world a drone would come and take your temp and then drop food supplies etc etc. But I'm wondering...if we all are going to get infected (40-80%) wouldn't it better to choose the time? Early on you get all the benefits, 3 weeks later you are lucky to have someone measure your temp. Of course you might escape it entirely or new knowledge might be gained in weeks ahead, but the downside is terrible https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-italian-doctor-says-fighting-covid-19-outbreak-is-like-war-11954229 https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-italian-doctor-says-f...
  • fhars 7y ago
    Three weeks later you will most likely still be in ICU if you have a severe case. It is better to catch it six or twelve months later when the first peak is over and treatment options may be better.
  • zuzzurro 7y ago
    Been thinking this since January. Did not have the guts to do it.
• cmurf 7y ago
  The employer wants a doctor's note, for you to get a paid sick day? They explicitly do not trust your self-assessment? I think this is a cultural defect. Evidence? We keep getting most everything wrong and paying more per capital to do it. The free market failures. The government failures. Their various incentives are widely considered flawed or perverse. We even fail to have effective conversations, almost immediately they get rail roaded, and we allow them to be rail roaded. The language strikes me as a lot of attachment/adoration for ideological things like "the free market" and "proper regulation" and being unable to get past our emotional attachments to these things. Literally the entire rest of the industrialized world does this better and cheaper per capita, and somehow Americans keep defending the system using various slogans and name calling. I think it's bad culture, like a national mental health disorder, resulting from long term cognitive dissonance. The longer it continues, it's like a perpetually recurring psychological trauma, at a national level.