Work from home

 I don’t want to be a doom merchant but I’ve been looking at the numbers and I’m slightly worried. The scientists and politicians still seem upbeat, so I hope I’m worrying for nothing. During the first lockdown the daily case numbers fell steadily and the rate of fall increased every day until daily case numbers were into double figures, when the rate slowed down. This time, the rate of fall is already slowing and we are still finding about 20,000 cases a day. We will know in about two weeks if the rate of fall in daily hospital admission starts to slow. It could just be that we are testing more people and that last time we weren’t testing the asymptomatic cases. 

It might not matter. When we have vaccinated the population that will die from Covid, who will care if 20,000 people or more a day are getting Covid? Especially as most of them won’t even know they’ve got it. However, the ONS estimates that only 1.87% of the population has had the virus, which means that there are still millions of people who could fill hospital, needing oxygen, steroids and IV antibiotics. Also, the more people this virus goes through the more chances it gets to mutate into something that is beyond the protection of the vaccine. Then we will be back to square one.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Clap. Clap harder. Find a hero. A statue? A state funeral? What can we do to make ourselves feel better?

It would be wrong to blame an individual if my observation proves to be right and we end up in Lockdown 3 for longer or overwhelm the NHS again in another 6 months. However, the guidance to work from home, if you can, seems to have been stretched to suit what people want to do.

There are jobs you can’t do at home. Jobs that are essential to the running of society that can’t be done at home must continue. You can’t vaccinate the elderly at home, or pack M&S sandwiches into a box. You can’t slaughter a pig or fit a CPAP mask to someone who can’t breathe. You can’t talk a suicidal person down from a bridge or fix the hospital boiler. You can’t put out a fire or keep the internet running. 

You can’t cut hair, or sell curtains, or teach, or act in a play, or run a restaurant or pub from home and these things are not essential. So, the government has asked us not to. Oh wait. Sorry. Teach. That’s a tricky one. Of course you can teach from home because it is essential but we know you can’t so you need to teach and not teach from home, oh and have some children in school because not everyone can learn at home.

It might be because of being asked to do the impossible that I’m beginning to get a bit twitchy about the people who are using the excuse of, ‘if you can,’ to go into the office. 

“Yes I’m in the office for three days a week because working from home is just horrible. I hate it.”

“We need our staff in the office because we don’t trust them to work from home.”

Honestly, if your work is all done on a computer that it can be done from home. It’s not easy or nice but it’s possible.  

Oh dear. I am grumpy today. Sorry. Stop. Think of heroes. Clap. Build a statue!