So I wanted to stick to the topic of the impacts on our work/businesses by this, and what plans you and your business might have.
Well, if we can generalize "our work" to include anything I feel like doing, whenever I feel like doing it, regardless of what anyone else says thinks or does [the retirement credo that some, like myself, are fortunate enough to live by].... I was reminded of the impact recently.
Where I am at, we are still very much impacted by covid. We are in the initial stages of so-called opening up and have only recently seen a positivity rate drop to under 10%. Many have it much worse and if you have it much better, be thankful and I hope it doesn't change except for the better no matter where you are.
I am building a particular kind of food dehydrator - the description and explanation is too long for this message. But, I was at a point in the build in which I needed to attach some "shelf inserts" into the dehydration chamber.
So, I went to find a tube of silicone cement and I had one that I had used several years ago...
Nothing came out, even after poking whatever I could find down the spout, but I could still feel some plyable content in the tube. Against my better judgement, I cut into the bottom of the tube (you can see the cut in the pick by the brand logo) and sure enough, there was plenty of the stuff to use for the shelf inserts. Except, I learned something ... old silicon glue, while it looks like new silicone glue, does not dry. I mean, literally 10 days later it is still so tacky it can't hold for squat. I don't know the chemistry behind that, maybe the "hardener" chemicals are gone...I don't much care. I had to remove it all and I ended up using some cyanoacrylate and it works...so far.
What does this have to do with covid? Well, pre-covid, I would have tossed the old tube and simply gone to the hardware store and picked up a new tube. In the pandemic, I simply do not do these things ike I used to. Yes, I am adapting and have increased my market trips to one-a-week from one every two weeks and have even met with friends for an outside lunch (with all of the sanitation and distancing). And yes, I have added a tube to my basket for my next mail order. So, it may be a bit of a stretch as an impact on "work", but it has now been enough months that the impact has bled into my current idea of work which includes a much larger mail-order component.
Personally, I believe that we will have an effective monoclonal antibody (MOA) available before this fall (i.e., about 4-5 months). Lilly just went into phase 1 and concurrently ramped up production. MOAs have a history of working and I feel very strongly that they will work against covid. When we actually have an effective treatment (*vir drugs have very limited efficacy in my opinion and please, don't even go on about chloroquine drugs).
Additionally, there is a window for companies to clean up on an MOA that closes significantly with an effective vaccine. Now, who pays for them and how much they pay, well, that is another matter.
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