COVID-19: La peste
A summary of the current COVID-19 situation in Le Devoir gives some numbers.
A case of the virus has been spotted at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf (and another at Université Laval in Quebec City).
Desjardins is closing half its branches; the Cirque du Soleil is laying off a lot of people.
Dr. Mylène Drouin, director of the city’s public health department, says she’s certain there have been cases of community transmission here that have not yet come to light.
As noted below (and as I’ve also seen on Facebook) the STM union is directing bus drivers to tape off the front door area to distance themselves from passengers, and only allow boarding via the back door.
Ephraim 10:01 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Businesses aren’t taking this seriously enough. A lot of offices that could do WFH are still refusing to do so. Including Quasi-governmental offices (like the CCQ). If you normally work at a computer all day, you should be telecommuting. And a company shouldn’t have the right to decide your health security for you.
Blork 10:15 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Just because you work on a computer all day it doesn’t necessarily mean that WFH is just a matter of working from home. Many (most?) such offices have security infrastructure in place, including internal networks and so on that are not so easy to connect to remotely. There are VPNs to do so, but not everyone has the VPN software installed or knows how to use it, plus some offices’ VPNs are set up with the expectation that maybe 5% of the workers will be using it at any time. Jump to 95% of workers on the VPN and you get a series of crashes.
There are other security issues too. Some offices do not let people leave the premises with a computer because of all the sensitive information on it (or that it can connect to).
Also hardware. Many employees do not use laptops, so if they suddenly need to work from home that means either schlepping a desktop machine home (not possible for everyone) or the office suddenly has to buy and configure all these laptops for people. (Assuming — and it’s a valid assumption — that the employee’s home computer doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for the job and/or does not have the required software and licenses, etc.)
All that to say, WFH for many office workers is a lot more involved than just typing into MS Word or fiddling with numbers in Excel.
Michael Black 10:42 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
My sister has a tiny computer at work, kind of a laptop without built in screen or keyboard. That would be easy to bring home.
I guess she classifies as an office manager, but it’s in a factory. The computer is.important, but would be limited without the factory. They have no business without the factory. So not a lot of.sense to have the office workers work from home.
Stores are more likely to be places for the virus to spread, and we can’t live without them.
Ephraim 11:57 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Blork – It may be, but the question is… do they have a right to put you and your family at risk IF there is a way around it? For example, at one office, they moved everyone “essential” to WFH but not those who are “non-essential” or should we call them disposable? Why are they deciding who’s health is important?
And here’s the other side of it… what if your cluster comes from that office, does that mean that that choice becomes a reason that the business can be sued, because it was preventable, you just decided not to follow the guidelines and risk your employees?
But, in Quebec, if you can work from home, the CNESST guidelines require the company to do it. So, by not complying, they violate the law as well. Why? Because the company is supposed to do it’s utmost to protect the health of their employees.
Two days ago, the calculation was that in 250 people in Paris, 95% chance that 1 of them had COVID-19 and was spreading it in the office. The numbers increase 33% per day exponentially unless you flatten the curve. The less people in the office, the less risk.
Alison Cummins 14:46 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Ephraim,
Blork just explained why it’s typically NOT possible for everyone to work from home.
We also don’t know if a company might have different measures in place for non-essential staff, who are by definition more flexible. For instance, maybe non-essential staff work (at the office) only one week out of two so the office is emptied and they can keep an appropriate distance from one another. Maybe half the staff is now working from a secondary office to reduce density. Maybe everyone has high cubicle walls now, and official permission is granted to eat lunch at their desks. Maybe IT is working around the clock to give everyone the technology they need to have video meetings from their desks.
+++ +++ +++
It’s not as simple as essential vs non-essential even for companies who are using that metric in their calculus.
A telecom technical call centre is definitely something we want to keep going during a time like this when virtual connection is even more important than before. So, essential. They work at computers but for all the reasons Blork listed most of them almost certainly CAN’T work from home. (But you can bet that budget is about to be reassigned for the technology to make this possible two or three years from now.)
Sales support in the same type of company can usually work from home, though they would be non-essential.
When I was in the corporate world, emergency preparedness was a very big deal. There were plans in place for the eventuality of any given office being completely shut down. None of them involved. These plans will be kicking into high gear now. (None of them involved killing off non-essential staff.)
Ephraim 16:31 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
@Alison – This is not the usual situation. If you can get people out of the office, you do it. You don’t decide that you are getting out just the “essential”. If you can’t do it, then you better have a great plan in place. But when it’s this important… maybe the CNESST should be picking up the phone and asking… what are you doing, what are the plans, how many more can you get to WFH.
And safety is different for different people. Imagine if you live with someone who is compromised… do you have to stay away from work with no pay because you are “non-essential”.
Ephraim 18:23 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Great, now a friend was told to go home because he’s a diabetic. No WFH.
Chris 19:01 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
Ephraim, don’t you run a hotel or something? Curious to know what you’ve done in light of all this… if you don’t mind sharing.
Ephraim 19:39 on 2020-03-17 Permalink
@Chris – Essentially, closed. All I get are cancellation emails. Basically, I’m unemployed with no UIC.