Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[EEVblog]

Looks like NSW (my state) and VIC is going into lockdown on Tuesday for "non-essential services", that supposedly is going to include schools. State decision. They have asked for federal approval apparently, don't I don't think they need it.
Don't know what that means to single one-man-band business like mine that don't have employees or the public visit. Good luck locking me out of my lab

[Zero999]

Looks like NSW (my state) and VIC is going into lockdown on Tuesday for "non-essential services", that supposedly is going to include schools. State decision. They have asked for federal approval apparently, don't I don't think they need it.
Don't know what that means to single one-man-band business like mine that don't have employees or the public visit. Good luck locking me out of my lab

If you get it, will you be self-isolating in your lab? You wouldn't want to spread it to your family.

[bd139]

Coronavirus is the best thing that could happen to engineers really. "Sorry Mrs Whoever, I've got to stay in the lab for 4 weeks now" (said while rubbing hands together)

[Zero999]

Coronavirus is the best thing that could happen to engineers really. "Sorry Mrs Whoever, I've got to stay in the lab for 4 weeks now" (said while rubbing hands together)

Cooking would be fun though. I suppose you could use the reflow oven for pizza, toast and bacon. Just give it a good clean first and don't use one which has previously been used for leaded solder.

[bd139]

Yep. No frying pan? ESD metal tray with a couple of 25W resistors on it and a bench supply 

[Nusa]

Yep. No frying pan? ESD metal tray with a couple of 25W resistors on it and a bench supply 

Hot dogs are easy. Two nails and a mains cord. Learned that one when I was a kid.

[donotdespisethesnake]

I think we'd be far better off if most people were sensible and composed and just stayed calm and took a few sensible precautions. Panicked and complacent people are both part of the problem and get in the way of those working on solutions.

In your fantasy world, where everyone behaves sensibly like you, everything works out fine for the survivors. ("Every man for himself").

In the real world, people are not "sensible and composed and just stayed calm and took a few sensible precautions". Letting thousands of people die needlessly is not an option. Now do you understand the problem?

[engrguy42]

I was at home all last week, and our company mandated it on Wednesday. And it will probably continue for the foreseeable future.

And while normally that would be a good thing (partly because I have a REAL computer at home, not the POS they hand out at work), in this environment it's freakin' depressing. Mostly because of the the hysterical click-bait doomsayers in the media, in internet forums, etc. The thought that there's this cloud hanging over and you can't do your normal daily stuff puts a damper on everything. Even if you wouldn't normally be running around doing stuff, just the thought of this big problem makes everything kinda depressing. 

On one hand I'll admit the overreaction is a good thing if it gets people to be super cautious and isolate and not spread this thing. But geez, these predictions of doom by self-proclaimed experts who have no clue what they're talking about are just useless, and only serve to upset everyone, and throw rationality out the window.

In my area basically all the stores are closed with the exception of supermarkets, WalMart and other food stores. The local university is operating online only, but when I drive thru it seems like 50% of the dorms are still occupied, with students walking around in groups like nothing's happening.

Strangely, it's guaranteed that when they get a 3 day holiday or spring break the campus is suddenly totally empty. Go figure. But hey, I'm just a boomer, so clearly they know something I don't.   

[tom66]

I feel like this article is worth a read:
https://medium.com/wintoncentre/how-much-normal-risk-does-covid-represent-4539118e1196

[nctnico]

Looks like NSW (my state) and VIC is going into lockdown on Tuesday for "non-essential services", that supposedly is going to include schools. State decision. They have asked for federal approval apparently, don't I don't think they need it.
Don't know what that means to single one-man-band business like mine that don't have employees or the public visit. Good luck locking me out of my lab

It is a good idea to make sure you can continue your business from home (be it at a reduced scale). It is possible someone locks the building your lab is in. One of my customers is in a university building. They have spread the various equipment over people's homes so the company can continue to operate in a distributed manner.

[langwadt]

Looks like NSW (my state) and VIC is going into lockdown on Tuesday for "non-essential services", that supposedly is going to include schools. State decision. They have asked for federal approval apparently, don't I don't think they need it.
Don't know what that means to single one-man-band business like mine that don't have employees or the public visit. Good luck locking me out of my lab

It is a good idea to make sure you can continue your business from home (be it at a reduced scale). It is possible someone locks the building your lab is in. One of my customers is in a university building. They have spread the various equipment over people's homes so the company can continue to operate in a distributed manner.

here the university locked the doors and disabled all keycards
 

[langwadt]

The local university is operating online only, but when I drive thru it seems like 50% of the dorms are still occupied, with students walking around in groups like nothing's happening.

Strangely, it's guaranteed that when they get a 3 day holiday or spring break the campus is suddenly totally empty. Go figure. But hey, I'm just a boomer, so clearly they know something I don't.   

Yeah, they know they will most likely survive.

getting as many as possible infected and immunized might be one way to stop the spread if only we could only keep it away
from  those with the biggest risk of serious effects

[james_s]

I think we'd be far better off if most people were sensible and composed and just stayed calm and took a few sensible precautions. Panicked and complacent people are both part of the problem and get in the way of those working on solutions.

In your fantasy world, where everyone behaves sensibly like you, everything works out fine for the survivors. ("Every man for himself").

In the real world, people are not "sensible and composed and just stayed calm and took a few sensible precautions". Letting thousands of people die needlessly is not an option. Now do you understand the problem?

It is you who completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. Obviously a lot of people are idiots who are utterly incapable of remaining calm during emergencies, I will never understand this. Still we should be trying hard to keep people calm as panic is an additional problem. Now do you understand the problem?

[james_s]

I was at home all last week, and our company mandated it on Wednesday. And it will probably continue for the foreseeable future.

And while normally that would be a good thing (partly because I have a REAL computer at home, not the POS they hand out at work), in this environment it's freakin' depressing. Mostly because of the the hysterical click-bait doomsayers in the media, in internet forums, etc. The thought that there's this cloud hanging over and you can't do your normal daily stuff puts a damper on everything. Even if you wouldn't normally be running around doing stuff, just the thought of this big problem makes everything kinda depressing. 

On one hand I'll admit the overreaction is a good thing if it gets people to be super cautious and isolate and not spread this thing. But geez, these predictions of doom by self-proclaimed experts who have no clue what they're talking about are just useless, and only serve to upset everyone, and throw rationality out the window.

In my area basically all the stores are closed with the exception of supermarkets, WalMart and other food stores. The local university is operating online only, but when I drive thru it seems like 50% of the dorms are still occupied, with students walking around in groups like nothing's happening.

Strangely, it's guaranteed that when they get a 3 day holiday or spring break the campus is suddenly totally empty. Go figure. But hey, I'm just a boomer, so clearly they know something I don't.   

The overreaction is a bad thing because everyone who overreacts and flails causes other people to blow off the whole thing as a stupid hysteria over nothing. We would have done a lot better having a plan in place and a calm, measured approach. Stop the panic and you stop the other half of the people from ignoring the threat and going around spreading germs. The news media is as guilty here as anyone, I stopped even reading the news regularly because every day it was flooded with sensationalized headlines engineered to keep people worked up into a frenzy glued to the news. This does NOT HELP, it creates this polarized response that we see.

[SiliconWizard]

The overreaction is a bad thing because everyone who overreacts and flails causes other people to blow off the whole thing as a stupid hysteria over nothing. We would have done a lot better having a plan in place and a calm, measured approach. Stop the panic and you stop the other half of the people from ignoring the threat and going around spreading germs. The news media is as guilty here as anyone, I stopped even reading the news regularly because every day it was flooded with sensationalized headlines engineered to keep people worked up into a frenzy glued to the news. This does NOT HELP, it creates this polarized response that we see.

Agreed.

I'm relatively surprised about how things are going currently over here. French people are not known to be particularly compliant with directives in general, but things are going surprisingly smoothly here actually. The vast majority follows the rules and keeps calm. First day of confinement, some people were still getting out a bit too much, but frankly nothing as bad as we saw in the US, and after the government reminded people that confinement was to be followed more seriously, people basically stopped doing that.

There is no panic that I know of. The media keep bombarding people with news about it of course, but they still keep rather calm and reasonable. Dunno how long that will last though, as it's only been less than a week...

[Sredni]

The overreaction is a bad thing because everyone who overreacts and flails causes other people to blow off the whole thing as a stupid hysteria over nothing. We would have done a lot better having a plan in place and a calm, measured approach.

You mean, like having a Quick Response Pandemic Team?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

Good idea.

[james_s]

The overreaction is a bad thing because everyone who overreacts and flails causes other people to blow off the whole thing as a stupid hysteria over nothing. We would have done a lot better having a plan in place and a calm, measured approach.

You mean, like having a Quick Response Pandemic Team?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

Good idea.

You don't have to convince me. I didn't fire the team and I didn't vote for the guy who did, that's water under the bridge though, what's done has been done and there's nothing we can do to change that now.

[SiliconWizard]

The overreaction is a bad thing because everyone who overreacts and flails causes other people to blow off the whole thing as a stupid hysteria over nothing. We would have done a lot better having a plan in place and a calm, measured approach.

You mean, like having a Quick Response Pandemic Team?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

Good idea.

You don't have to convince me. I didn't fire the team and I didn't vote for the guy who did, that's water under the bridge though, what's done has been done and there's nothing we can do to change that now.

And it's far from the only country that did similar things.

[james_s]

Agreed.

I'm relatively surprised about how things are going currently over here. French people are not known to be particularly compliant with directives in general, but things are going surprisingly smoothly here actually. The vast majority follows the rules and keeps calm. First day of confinement, some people were still getting out a bit too much, but frankly nothing as bad as we saw in the US, and after the government reminded people that confinement was to be followed more seriously, people basically stopped doing that.

There is no panic that I know of. The media keep bombarding people with news about it of course, but they still keep rather calm and reasonable. Dunno how long that will last though, as it's only been less than a week...

I've never been to France but I've always pictured French culture as rather calm, polite and organized overall so I'm not all that surprised to hear this. Not all Americans are loud, crude, ignorant self absorbed boobs but I'll be the first to admit that the stereotypes have some basis in reality.

At this point I think nobody really knows what will happen but the data posted earlier suggests that it is largely futile and even the most drastic measures are unlikely to make enough difference to really matter. I've been working from home and have barely left the house in weeks, my partner has what is deemed an essential job so she was going to work until recently when she got sick and now we both have symptoms resembling a very mild cold. Slight fever then she got a sore throat for about a day while mine was just a tickle and now it's sniffles, overall gooey respiratory system and fatigue. She was hit a bit harder than me but is starting to feel a lot better today while I'm still extremely tired but otherwise feel pretty good. I suppose it could be Covid but I can't help but think something this mild can't possibly be that but who knows. No sense in trying to get tested, there are others who need the testing far more than we do and going to any kind of facility seems like a great way to collect any bugs I didn't already have. I was already staying in anyway so I'll continue to do so.

[PlainName]

Still we should be trying hard to keep people calm as panic is an additional problem.

There's a bit of a gulf between keeping calm and making out it's a non-issue, nothing worse than a mild cold. Perhaps some of the people still insisting it's a nothing do so because they are scared to admit to themselves that it's going to be worse than they are comfortable with, kind of like when one has a dentist phobia and would rather suffer toothache and rotting teeth than visit a dentist.

Undoubtedly there are click-bait headlines but not all of them are, and by now we should be able to pick out the facts from the scaremongering. But we are also super-complacent and maybe suffering some form of 'boy who cried wolf' thing. We've had previous serious issues that should have got us pretty scared - from ebola and SARS to Trump precipitating a war, 9/11, 2008, etc - and they've all turned out more or less OK.

Can't speak for anyone else but when this one popped up I thought it would be a repeat of bird flu and barely register on my radar after the first couple of days of scary headlines. It wasn't that I didn't have empathy for the suffering Chinese but that there was nothing I could do for them and TPTB (whoever they are) would make sure it didn't get here. Now it is here and whilst the deniers are keen to point out that few will die that wouldn't have done otherwise, I'll bet they aren't in an at-risk group.

[PlainName]

Something just occurred to me to explain the perceived panic: it might not be the scary headlines but the celebrities. Things tend to be not real when they affect other people because we don't know them, but when a celebrity - many of whom we know intimately - gets KOd by something we realise it's actually there. Just need a couple of biggies to suffer complications and people will really panic.

[james_s]

That's always been weird to me too, I don't feel like I know any celebrities intimately, I've never met most of them, I've never talked to them, I don't really grasp the connection so many seem to feel to them.

[SilverSolder]

That's always been weird to me too, I don't feel like I know any celebrities intimately, I've never met most of them, I've never talked to them, I don't really grasp the connection so many seem to feel to them.

For that, we have to leave the realm of rational engineering, and enter into the emotionally driven space.

[PlainName]

We are already there - it affects all of us to some degree. Imagine for a moment if our Dave succumbed: are you suggesting that since we are rational engineers it wouldn't affect us any more than seeing some random name in a newspaper article?

[EEVblog]

We are already there - it affects all of us to some degree. Imagine for a moment if our Dave succumbed

Still here 
BTW, my logistics person Suse is not coming in any more until this blows over, so it's now just me.