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> Vaccines for teachers have been widely available for almost a year now. You appear to have missed the news around the Omicron variant being much better at va

> Vaccines for teachers have been widely available for almost a year now. You appear to have missed the news around the Omicron variant being much better at vaccine evasion than Delta. You can't compare the situation a year ago with the one now, which is unique and unprecedented, just like the pandemic was initially.

nsxwolf 5y ago
I thought it was pretty much understood the vaccines weren't doing much for contraction of Delta already. We've moved on to "prevents serious illness and death" which is still true for Omicron and ought to be enough for teachers to return to work.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  In that case, shouldn't it be enough for everyone to return to work? I wonder why top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work then. Clearly they must be operating under the same mysterious constraints that are keeping schools closed.
  - sanedigital 5y ago
    Top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work because many tried it and were met with absolute mutiny. The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return.
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return. Certainly this couldn't be the case for teachers teaching remotely – they probably enjoy their 10 hour workdays where they are standing most of the time and wearing a mask.
      - sanedigital 5y ago
        Very true, teachers unions are fighting the return to schools hard. I was referring more to your typical white collar office job, i.e. those employed by the S&P 500.
wayoutthere 5y ago
I have Omicron right now. I’m vaccinated and had my booster in November. I’m young, healthy, I work remotely and I’m struggling to make it through half a day. My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time. There is no way I could do a job where I had to be on my feet all day. I can barely carry on a conversation. The problem right now where I live is that everyone is sick. Grocery stores, restaurants, delivery services and even fucking Walmart are closed because they don’t have enough employees to operate. The schools tried to open but it was a disaster with half the teachers out sick so they just postponed opening them a week in hopes it will go away. This wave will be over, but without lasting immunity in the population the next mutation could be worse. We could very well be dealing with this the rest of our lives and there is no return to “normal”. We’re in the new normal.
- sanedigital 5y ago
  > My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time. There are 30-40M symptomatic cases of the flu each year in the US, with the same or worse symptoms as what you just described. There is no "new" normal, cold & flu season just got more complex.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    I’ve had the flu. Covid is way worse. We’re already in the new normal; nobody is going back into the office if they don’t have to and that alone will force a realignment of American life. We were slowly headed that way before Covid anyway, the pandemic just made it happen. Companies requiring knowledge workers to be onsite are having huge levels of attrition because the employees have options. One of my clients who was very eager to get back into the office and tried forcing the issue in Q3 last year has seen 40% of their engineering staff quit over the last 6 months, and are having a hard time finding replacements. They made the decision just before the holidays to switch to a remote-first model and downsize their offices. This is happening, and it’s going to crush commercial real estate.
    - sanedigital 5y ago

nsxwolf 5y ago

I thought it was pretty much understood the vaccines weren't doing much for contraction of Delta already. We've moved on to "prevents serious illness and death" which is still true for Omicron and ought to be enough for teachers to return to work.

quadrifoliate 5y ago
In that case, shouldn't it be enough for everyone to return to work? I wonder why top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work then. Clearly they must be operating under the same mysterious constraints that are keeping schools closed.
- sanedigital 5y ago
  Top companies in the S&P 500 are delaying return to work because many tried it and were met with absolute mutiny. The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > The vast majority of people got a taste of the remote life and don't want to return. Certainly this couldn't be the case for teachers teaching remotely – they probably enjoy their 10 hour workdays where they are standing most of the time and wearing a mask.
    - sanedigital 5y ago
      Very true, teachers unions are fighting the return to schools hard. I was referring more to your typical white collar office job, i.e. those employed by the S&P 500.

wayoutthere 5y ago

I have Omicron right now. I’m vaccinated and had my booster in November. I’m young, healthy, I work remotely and I’m struggling to make it through half a day. My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time. There is no way I could do a job where I had to be on my feet all day. I can barely carry on a conversation. The problem right now where I live is that everyone is sick. Grocery stores, restaurants, delivery services and even fucking Walmart are closed because they don’t have enough employees to operate. The schools tried to open but it was a disaster with half the teachers out sick so they just postponed opening them a week in hopes it will go away. This wave will be over, but without lasting immunity in the population the next mutation could be worse. We could very well be dealing with this the rest of our lives and there is no return to “normal”. We’re in the new normal.

sanedigital 5y ago
> My symptoms aren’t even that bad, I’m just exhausted all the time. There are 30-40M symptomatic cases of the flu each year in the US, with the same or worse symptoms as what you just described. There is no "new" normal, cold & flu season just got more complex.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  I’ve had the flu. Covid is way worse. We’re already in the new normal; nobody is going back into the office if they don’t have to and that alone will force a realignment of American life. We were slowly headed that way before Covid anyway, the pandemic just made it happen. Companies requiring knowledge workers to be onsite are having huge levels of attrition because the employees have options. One of my clients who was very eager to get back into the office and tried forcing the issue in Q3 last year has seen 40% of their engineering staff quit over the last 6 months, and are having a hard time finding replacements. They made the decision just before the holidays to switch to a remote-first model and downsize their offices. This is happening, and it’s going to crush commercial real estate.
  - sanedigital 5y ago