The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

Reading this conversation has been interesting to me, as I have been working on a couple complaints in my workplace about employees who have concerns about being on campus, due to their own risk factors, being immunocompromised and whatnot. But if an essential function of your job is to be present, continuing to work from home is not a reasonable accommodation if the employer is taking reasonable precautions to keep you safe in the workplace.

For teachers, I'm sure many have valid concerns about going back into the school buildings, especially teachers who are older and have other health issues. But if a school is taking mitigating measures (masks, hand sanitizer, distancing when possible, quarantining those who have been exposed, etc) then it is time to go back to work, especially if the medical info we know now is that there is a relatively low risk of spread in the schools. They should still take the virus seriously and if they are worried, I don't blame them. But you still have a job to do. The burden then shifts to the school district and the building staff to do whatever they need to do to keep the teachers safe once they are back.

 
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Agree with a lot of the above. If you have an essential job that requires you to be on-site, that employer should be doing everything they can to mitigate the risks. If that’s being done, and you don’t feel comfortable being on-site...you still have a choice in the matter. You can quit and find a job with different requirements. Maybe not the easiest decision, but at some point we all have to look after ourselves and realize that we do have discretion over what we’re each willing to risk.

 
funhusker said:
I'm also a teacher and don't see much wrong with what you said.

If a teacher doesn't have underlying conditions or is in an at risk group, there really isn't much that should be keeping them from work.  If we expect the cashier at Wal-mart to show up, we better show up too.
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I'm also a teacher, and for how much we've been told we are frontline and essential workers and need to be at work, I'd expect a much, much better set of protections for us than what we've gotten for the past year, but apparently we're not "that" essential. And frankly, a lot more respect, but my how the tables have turned since last Spring. 

 
While we are talking about schools and Covid I found this to be fascinating. Naperville a suburb of Chicago is actually giving back $10 million to taxpayers due to savings from the past year. To be fair Naperville is a rather wealthy community that likely had less hurdles than other lower income districts.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-naperville-203-tax-reimbursement-st-0122-20210121-gm2kpwam4jepbpzxksitwp5ugm-story.html

“Naperville 203 understands the great burden many of our families have faced during the COVID-19 Pandemic and hopes that this reimbursement lessons that burden,” Superintendent Dan Bridges said in a news release.



Chief Financial Officer Michael Frances told board members this month that preliminary estimates showed the owner of a $400,000 home could receive about $270 under the reimbursement.



At Tuesday’s board meeting, Bridges said the district fell into this “unique opportunity” of economic relief because of the pandemic. Some district expenses for utility bills and staffing fell below projections because of the shift to remote learning, resulting in a surplus in some district accounts.
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Cdog923 said:
I'm also a teacher, and for how much we've been told we are frontline and essential workers and need to be at work, I'd expect a much, much better set of protections for us than what we've gotten for the past year, but apparently we're not "that" essential. And frankly, a lot more respect, but my how the tables have turned since last Spring. 
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This is so true, for all the "Teachers are heroes" and "I totally respect teachers sooooooo much for what they do" talk, you think they would actually care a bit more about us, but we all knew it was BS.  

 
DevoHusker said:
He now says he has enough scientific evidence to conclude that. I am personally okay with changing positions, as new information is gathered. And yes, this is a good thing, but the optics are terrible for those who are skeptical even without ever changing data.
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Yea, that came off as a bit sarcastic, but it's a genuine reaction from me. You're right about the optics, though; it's going to be more fuel for the same people who were chastising Fauci about the movement on masks last year. 

 
TGHusker said:
That is good news.    Let's hope it plays out that way.   
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Let's hope so but I also recall Michael Levitt claiming this would all be over by August and the US would "only" have suffered less than 170,000 deaths.  He's only off by 300% or so and counting.  He's the "expert" the right has been touting that we all follow.


I'm also not sure how herd immunity works when strains such as the South African strain seem to not be effected very much by our natural immune response.  There's also questions on how well the vaccines work on it.  Probably better than the immune response of those previously infected but still.   

In other words those that have had Covid are most likely not immune to this strain and if it then becomes dominant we'll need tweaks in the vaccine before getting this thing tamped down.  That'll be beyond April.  

 
Scarlet said:
Let's hope so but I also recall Michael Levitt claiming this would all be over by August and the US would "only" have suffered less than 170,000 deaths.  He's only off by 300% or so and counting.  He's the "expert" the right has been touting that we all follow.


I'm also not sure how herd immunity works when strains such as the South African strain seem to not be effected very much by our natural immune response.  There's also questions on how well the vaccines work on it.  Probably better than the immune response of those previously infected but still.   

In other words those that have had Covid are most likely not immune to this strain and if it then becomes dominant we'll need tweaks in the vaccine before getting this thing tamped down.  That'll be beyond April.  
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Thanks for the additional background info.    In other words, it ain't over until its over.   Hunker down until then and be safe.

 
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