Work in the Time of COVID-19

With the ever-rising infection rate of the COVID-19 virus, more and more people are being required to work at home.

No hard-and-fast rule has come from the federal government as of 26 March 2020.  The CDC is only issuing "recommended" guidelines for personal separation to prevent contagion.  On social media, people talk about staying six feet away from others.

Some states have gone much further than the federal government.  Kentucky, for example, proclaimed a state of emergency on 6 March 2020.  The governor then proceeded to take steps to close schools, restrict restaurants to call-in and pick-up rather than dining-in, recommend that vulnerable segments of the population stay home, and other measures to prevent the spread.  The result is that the infection rate has been slowed in Kentucky.

In contrast, Tennessee's governor did nothing.  Their infection rate continues to climb.

In Florida, the governor has done little.  He did not close the beaches and did not prevent Spring Break gatherings of students in large groups, with the result that students returned to their homes and schools infected by COVID-19.  Cities in Florida have taken their own measures.  Jacksonville's mayor proclaimed a state of emergency on 13 March 2020, closed the city's beaches, and issued a requirement for all commercial concerns doing business in the city that can make provisions for employees to work at home to do so.  Our younger daughter works for an essential business -- food distribution.  She was told yesterday to prepare to work at home.  Before that, while she was still commuting from her home in another county to Jacksonville, she had been issued a letter by her employing company stating that she works for an essential business and that she be allowed to travel county-to-county in case counties started closing their borders.

All over the country, people are gearing up to work at home.  Some couples living in small apartments have had to come up with novel methods and physical arrangements.  Children, sent home from school, need supervision, instruction, and entertainment.  Some people have become inventive in that area; on Facebook there is a video of a four-year-old progressing through an indoor obstacle course constructed by his father!  

When the personal computer first came on the scene, there was a lot of talk of "the paperless society" and how computers would radically change the way people work.  For many years, not much seemed to be happening to bring these conditions about.  There was still an awful lot of paper circulating.  This disease and its severity may just change that.