3 ms·

It's still risky for healthy young individuals, while most barely present symptoms some people have a very real risk of dying. "Voluntarily allowing people to

by pkage 6y ago

It's still risky for healthy young individuals, while most barely present symptoms some people have a very real risk of dying. "Voluntarily allowing people to get infected" creates a perverse incentive for poor essential workers to put their lives on the line in order to put food on the table.

deleted 6y ago
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SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
What's the perverse incentive? I don't think the proposal is that essential workers should have to get infected before they work.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  It's not so much a “perverse incentive” for essential workers as a direct attack, as every essential worker who would choose this route to get infected increases the risk profile for everyone they work with (not all of whom are young and otherwise healthy.) But it stops being a problem there if, as most proposals for reopening suggest, general shelter in place is replaced with targeted quarantines of the infected and exposed (and especially if, for this specific option, any resulting lack of employment from choosing voluntary infection by this route is treated as voluntary separation from work and thus not subject to public benefits.) The perverse incentive would be for non-essential workers, but only if this is coupled with one of the existing proposals for “certificates of immunity” (which there is little scientific basis for, but that's another issue) being a factor in allowing them to return to non-remote work.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  It's not an incentive if it's mandatory. It's an incentive if there's some perceived benefit to do it. It's perverse if that perceived benefit is avoiding unnecessary consequences of economic distress. If voluntary infection is allowed, employers may favor employees who test positive for antibodies—for example, by offering a pay increase, or some additional amount of paid sick leave prior to recovery—because they would be less likely to fall ill en masse at some unpredictable later date. States with continued (or resumed in a second wave) shutdown restrictions may exempt businesses whose employees are deemed immune. The people most likely to be incentivized to take this risk are the people who are most economically vulnerable already. I would never consider that risk, but I'm a well paid software engineer working from home.

by pkage 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

What's the perverse incentive? I don't think the proposal is that essential workers should have to get infected before they work.

dragonwriter 6y ago
It's not so much a “perverse incentive” for essential workers as a direct attack, as every essential worker who would choose this route to get infected increases the risk profile for everyone they work with (not all of whom are young and otherwise healthy.) But it stops being a problem there if, as most proposals for reopening suggest, general shelter in place is replaced with targeted quarantines of the infected and exposed (and especially if, for this specific option, any resulting lack of employment from choosing voluntary infection by this route is treated as voluntary separation from work and thus not subject to public benefits.) The perverse incentive would be for non-essential workers, but only if this is coupled with one of the existing proposals for “certificates of immunity” (which there is little scientific basis for, but that's another issue) being a factor in allowing them to return to non-remote work.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
It's not an incentive if it's mandatory. It's an incentive if there's some perceived benefit to do it. It's perverse if that perceived benefit is avoiding unnecessary consequences of economic distress. If voluntary infection is allowed, employers may favor employees who test positive for antibodies—for example, by offering a pay increase, or some additional amount of paid sick leave prior to recovery—because they would be less likely to fall ill en masse at some unpredictable later date. States with continued (or resumed in a second wave) shutdown restrictions may exempt businesses whose employees are deemed immune. The people most likely to be incentivized to take this risk are the people who are most economically vulnerable already. I would never consider that risk, but I'm a well paid software engineer working from home.