Google To Keep Employees Home Until Summer 2021 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic (wsj.com) 81
Google will keep its employees home until at least next July, making the search-engine giant the first major U.S. corporation to formalize such an extended timetable in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: The move will affect nearly all of the roughly 200,000 full-time and contract employees across Google parent Alphabet and is sure to pressure other technology giants that have slated staff to return as soon as January. Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai made the decision himself last week after debate among Google Leads, an internal group of top executives that he chairs, according to a person familiar with the matter. A small number of Google staffers were notified later in the week, people familiar said. Mr. Pichai was swayed in part by sympathy for employees with families to plan for uncertain school years that may involve at-home instruction, depending on geography. It also frees staff to sign full-year leases elsewhere if they choose to move.
"I know it hasn't been easy," Mr. Pichai wrote in a note to staff Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported the impending extension. "I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months." The new date plants Google firmly in the cautious camp of companies debating the efficacy and wisdom of remote work as coronavirus cases surge and employers try to balance workers' safety with efforts to reopen the economy. Some multinational firms are eager to bring employees back and return to normalcy. The extended timeline applies to company employees in most of its major offices, including the headquarters of Mountain View, Calif., and other offices in the U.S., U.K., India, Brazil and elsewhere. Until now, Google had told its employees to expect a return to the office beginning in January.
"I know it hasn't been easy," Mr. Pichai wrote in a note to staff Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported the impending extension. "I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months." The new date plants Google firmly in the cautious camp of companies debating the efficacy and wisdom of remote work as coronavirus cases surge and employers try to balance workers' safety with efforts to reopen the economy. Some multinational firms are eager to bring employees back and return to normalcy. The extended timeline applies to company employees in most of its major offices, including the headquarters of Mountain View, Calif., and other offices in the U.S., U.K., India, Brazil and elsewhere. Until now, Google had told its employees to expect a return to the office beginning in January.
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Don't worry, much like the coronavirus doesn't infect BLM protestors but does infect Trump rallies, the virus is scheduled to spontaneously stop being a thread on November 4th.
Why do you think all of you asshats going to start taking the threat serious (start wearing masks, stop going to parties and crowding at the beach, etc) suddenly on November 4th? That seems a bit optimistic to me.
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Re:SRSLY?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Staying at home is not cowering in fear. It is the thing to do in order to fight the disease. The exception is if you are a healthcare worker or if your job is essential for others to be able to stay at home.
The real cowards are the ones not respecting distances, not wearing a mask, and otherwise ignoring the current situation. They are too scared to change their habits, and by doing so, undermine the efforts of those who do their best to fight the disease, even if it is just by staying home.
Here, Google is just doing their part. If others do the same, it won't last a year and things will quickly get back to "almost normal". If people don't do their part, it will last for much longer, unless herd immunity is reached before that, and by herd immunity, I mean many million deaths in the US alone, and just as many crippled for who knows how long.
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Re: Your illness far more dangerous. (Score:2)
Google Keep Employees Home Until Summer 2021 (Score:1)
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(Hard to imagine that I'd be writing that sentence seriously about a 2020 USA...)
Just to catch covid when their kids bring it home (Score:2, Insightful)
...because the schools are determined to open.
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At least it keeps the people at work from catching it because their officemate's kids bring it home from school. One less attack vector.
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:1)
Kids are immune...itâ(TM)s true!
I saw it in a Star Trek episode âoeMiriâ
https://g.co/kgs/9w9hPB44 [g.co]
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Most of the cities that have large Google offices (e.g. Mountain View, San Francisco, New York, ...) already announced that they don't have any immediate plans to reopen their schools. While all of the school district are responsive to changing conditions, the current expectation is that schools will remain closed for a good while; and when they open, there are likely going to be restrictions in place.
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[Google To Keep Employees Home Until Summer 2021 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic] just to catch covid when their kids bring it home because the schools are determined to open.
This very well might happen, and it is yet another reason for employees who don't need to be in the office to stay home. There are some jobs and activities which are essential and require people to be in close contact, like manufacturing goods and educating children. These activities will increase the spread of the virus. Since it is probably not prudent to stop these activities until the virus is "under control", we need to look to other areas of society to limit spread instead. Most office work fits that
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This very well might happen, and it is yet another reason for employees who don't need to be in the office to stay home.
Yes!
There are some jobs and activities which are essential and require people to be in close contact...
Yes.
...like manufacturing goods...
Yes, for the most part, and for the time being.
...and educating children...
Absolutely NO! The public school system is a HUGE hindrance to educating children. Children who come out of the public school system with an actual education do so DESPITE the public school system, not because of it. I have never encountered an industry more hell-bent on creating mindless drones than the public school system. It's one of the few industries that gets more money as its failures increase.
"I never let my schooli
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The public school system in the United States is a HUGE hindrance to educating children.
FTFY. Some of us live in sane countries where kids actually get a pretty decent education in our public school systems, and we don't have broken ways of funding public schools that guarantee failure nor politicians who gut them in favor of pandering to religious and other special-interest groups.
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Absolutely NO! The public school system is a HUGE hindrance to educating children.
I can assure you my children learn more in school than they do watching videos while my wife and I are on conference calls. Of the handful of parents in my kindergartner's class I have talked to in the past few months, none of them have been happy with their progress in home schooling their children. Families with at least one parent that currently doesn't have work responsibilities are doing better than most, but still not great. I know some families with kids who are 7+ who had an easier time (at least th
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One of the reasons why we need to work from home, wear masks, avoid social gatherings, etc. is to allow vital activities such as schooling to return. The way we will limit viral transmission in schools has relatively little to do with social distancing and mask wearing inside the school, especially among young children who are unlikely to follow those guidelines. Our ability to limit viral outbreaks outside of schools by social distancing and wearing masks everywhere else will have a much bigger impact since there will be less virus entering the schools in the first place.
That's a nice theory. It may not work out that way, though. Israel decided to reopen their schools, and like clockwork two weeks later case counts began rising, fast, and most of the new cases were connected to school transmission. Prior to reopening, Israel's numbers had been declining steadily and looked very good.
One successful model of the virus growth relates it to movement, and shows that as little as 20% of people resuming normal movement patterns is enough to produce the recent growth rates we're
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Israel decided to reopen their schools, and like clockwork two weeks later case counts began rising, fast, and most of the new cases were connected to school transmission.
That is a good point, and it looks like I understated how necessary good measures are in the schools themselves. It looks like Israel is a good cautionary tale of why we shouldn't be sending everyone back in the same volume, and why they should be wearing masks (at ages where that is feasible at least). Medical experts were recommending only sending back kids under 9 in small groups with PPE, and Israel ended up sending everyone back and stopped using PPE almost immediately because of the summer heat. I did
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The reason the schools need to open is because most parents don't have another way to ensure their kids are being looked after while they are at work. People can't go back to work, even in a work from home setting, if they don't have someone else looking after their kids for the majority of the day.
Re:Just to catch covid when their kids bring it ho (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools are not opening. My district was going to open 2 days a week but that changed a couple days ago, with no end in sight.
This is serious. My wife and I are doing the best we can to home school, but our kids are regressing. All kids are regressing. I suppose high school students can handle virtual classrooms, but it doesn't work for second graders. Schools need to open. If you're afraid of the covid, then don't send your kids to school.
So far in my county of 48,000 people, there have been 500 cases and 8 deaths - all people over 80. I don't know one single person who has had it. This was supposed to be about "Flattening the Curve". It is not supposed to be a total lockdown until the whole world is vaccinated. This needs to stop. If not, then the state needs to return my tax dollars so I can pay for a private school that is actually open.
Re:Just to catch covid when their kids bring it ho (Score:5, Interesting)
Schools are not opening. My district was going to open 2 days a week but that changed a couple days ago, with no end in sight.
Teachers in the county I live in are resigning because the school board in my state (red state, one of the early reopeners) is pushing for in person reopenings with masks not required and no distancing protocols. The school board of course made this decision during a video conference call.
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:2)
That's great! They are moving out, making room for younger teachers and lowering the school district payroll by giving up their high-paying jobs.
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:5, Insightful)
That's great! They are moving out, making room for younger teachers and lowering the school district payroll by giving up their high-paying jobs.
What younger teachers? School districts around the country are struggling to hire, especially in STEM areas. Poor pay, long hours and, now, risk of contracting COVID are poor reasons to spend a lot of money getting a degree.
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Really? My sister's kids (10 and 12) are doing better.
My kids are doing better as well.
But I am highly educated, we have fast internet, my kids each have their own computer and a quiet place to work, and I can give them personalized help on any subject.
Low-income kids are not doing better. They are doing much worse.
Re:Just to catch covid when their kids bring it ho (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, lucky you and your county. Only 8 grannies dead; but people travel in and out of your county and spread it.
The USA would be almost back to normal if we had focused on testing and PPE in the proper areas. We'd be doing well if we had stayed the course longer. Just like you have to take a full course of antibiotics even if you feel better, you have to take a full course of quarantine even when it looks like things are getting better. We opened too soon.
Without testing, we were flying blind. What d
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This was supposed to be about "Flattening the Curve". It is not supposed to be a total lockdown until the whole world is vaccinated.
It's still about flattening the curve and has never been about lockdown until vaccination. We're still in an ongoing peak of infection rates. The numbers indicate we could be on the verge of a decline, but we are a far cry from flattening the curve. Pushing to "re-open the economy" and a general refusal to take the pandemic seriously is why we're still in this months later. Opening schools and businesses now will only increase the infection rate further and ensure this all lasts even longer. It all sucks,
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Pushing to "re-open the economy" and a general refusal to take the pandemic seriously is why we're still in this months later. Opening schools and businesses now will only increase the infection rate further and ensure this all lasts even longer.
What more could we possibly do?!? Everything has been closed for FIVE MONTHS. I haven't been anywhere but a grocery store in FIVE MONTHS. My kids have been home from school for FIVE MONTHS. My office has been closed for FIVE MONTHS. I haven't had a haircut in FIVE MONTHS.
Enough is enough!! This has to stop! Don't like it, keep hiding in your basement. The rest of us have things to do.
Re:Just to catch covid when their kids bring it ho (Score:4, Insightful)
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What more could we possibly do?!? Everything has been closed for FIVE MONTHS.
We have done almost nothing to contain the virus compared to most other developed nations. We are an order of magnitude worse off than most developed nations because of our poor national response to the virus.
Nationally we closed down for perhaps a month, with strong resistance from large subcultures being encouraged by the leaders they trust. You sound like you are in a state who is probably doing well now, likely because they were hit harder than most in March and April. But around the country you have pe
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Teachers unions are demanding universal health care and a vaccination, among other demands, before returning to their jobs.
But don't worry, they are willing to stay home and collect their full pay while (many, not all) half-arse it and act like substitute teachers, handing out 'keep busy' worksheets and reading assignments.
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:5, Insightful)
Teachers unions are demanding universal health care and a vaccination, among other demands, before returning to their jobs.
As well they should. Children are little vectors of disease at the best of times, which these aren't.
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...and the lockdowns, face diapers, antisocial distancing, and other measures you lot have forced on us are largely to blame. Without those measures, the China virus would've burned itself out long ago and we'd already be back to normal. See Sweden as an example.
COVID has a 20% hospitalization rate (Score:1)
South Florida is already out of ICU beds and sending people north. Texas has a county that has started death panels, e.g. they decide how likely you are to survive and if they deem it unlikely you don't get a bed. They're too far away from other hospitals to just ship you away.
Now, if you send those kids to school get ready for mass death. First off, you'll lose around
Re: COVID has a 20% hospitalization rate (Score:2)
Now, if you send those kids to school get ready for mass death. First off, you'll lose around .01 - .02% of those kids. Maybe yours. Maybe not. But think of it this way, would you send your kid to a school that put a cap in the head of every 100 kid that walked in the door?
0.01% does not mean one out of every 100, it means one out of every 10,000. Still bad, but not nearly as bad as you want to pretend it is.
You're right, I left a zero off (Score:2)
The point still stands, you're sending your kid into a building where at random they're gonna end up dead. Keep doing it long enough and you'll roll snake eyes.
One last thing, not every sick kid dies (Score:3)
Same goes for the teachers and parents who get infected. We all focus on the death rate, but that hospitalization rate means you've got at least a 20% chance of long term negative health effects, many of which could shave decades off your life.
Teachers, being well educated, know this, and like I said, many are just going to retire. Meaning larger class sizes. Meaning more disease spread.
Oh, and something else I forgot,
20% hospitalization rate? (Score:2)
COVID has a 20% hospitalization rate
Where do you get this figure?
According to the CDC, [cdc.gov] the cumulative hospitalization rate in the US is 120.9 per 100,000 people. The CDC's data comes from COVID-NET, a network of over 250 acute-care hospitals in 14 states. Multiplying the 120.9 per 100,000 cumulative rate yields a total of ~400,000 US hospitalizations so far. Since there have been ~4.36M cases in the US to date, that means the hospitalization rate is a little over 9%. The only time you get a hospitalization rate of 20% or more is if you'
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So you think a 9% hospitalisation rate with uncontrolled spread would be manageable then? The short answer is no it would not.
So if the vast majority of people who need hospital treatment can't get it (no oxygen for you) then the death rate will jump close to the hospitalisation rate. You are then looking at something in the region of 15-20 million deaths in a six month period instead of 2.8 in a normal year in the USA. We are talking mass graves and bodies in the streets. Oh and with so many people sick at
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So you think a 9% hospitalisation rate with uncontrolled spread would be manageable then?
I didn't say that. Or think it. I just asked where his 20% number came from. You got something against trying to get accurate COVID data?
...then the death rate will jump close to the hospitalisation rate.
I'm not sure you understand what the hospitalization rate actually is. Let's say the hospitals are full and no more patients can be admitted. If no more beds are added, the hospitalization rate drops as the number of cases rises. If cases double and no capacity is added, the hospitalization rate halves to ~4.5%. The CFR in the US is 3.4%. The death rate could very w
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If you want someone to blame, blame your fellow citizens and the lawmakers that refused to apply some common
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Greedy? Whiny? I'm not talking about amusement parks and movie theaters. I'm talking about work and school.
And again, every time I mention this I get modded down... What more can we do? I haven't seen another human - other my immediate family or at the grocery store - in five months. It's against the law to go anywhere without a mask. There is literally nothing more we can do. If this hasn't been enough, then it's time to stop it.
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This was supposed to be about "Flattening the Curve". It is not supposed to be a total lock down until the whole world is vaccinated.
It is still about flattening the curve, but we did a very poor job of that at a national level. The medical experts were clear that states were opening up too early, so needing to open up more slowly going forward and perhaps regressing to more strict lock downs is the obvious result. The United States is among the worst countries based on our management of this crisis, and our populace will face hardships worse than most other countries as a result.
We had the capability to be "over the hump" if our federal
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I don't care if you want to send your kids to private school, but I'm not paying for it.
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:2)
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They lost their spring months as well. It went 'virtual' beginning March, which meant a 30 minute zoom meeting every Wednesday. I expect the same for the following year.
I'm doing the best I can. I have a kid with special needs. It's not easy.
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How are other countries dealing with the school issue? I suppose if a country does everything else right, then in-person schooling won't cause big spikes.
One may have to choose between bars or schools.
Did you pick you last point up from Trump (Score:2)
He's trying to get you to privatize schools so he can profit from them. It'll end in really crappy education for your kids. Like Trump University but for Children. This has been a goal for ages. They want to be able to do a theocratic education and they want to profit off your kid's education.
It'll end in Idiocracy. The reason school was public was you don't want educating the next generation to be a lowest bidder approach. You'll end up with
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I have four nephews and nieces, aged 6, 8, 13 and 17. Of those only one has potentially regressed because she has been refusing to do the work. The youngest two are doing possibly better than had they been at school. The eldest is doing well too by all accounts because she has conscientiously been doing all the work. The 13 year old problem ended back up in school on account of her father being a key worker. I suspect she now regrets her initial poor behaviour.
Anyway the point is that just because your chil
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The curve isn't only deaths, it's the R number, infecting others, and being disabled with fuxored lungs (and likely reduced life and career expectancy).
I do feel you re school. Try having a special needs kid home regressing a lot more than yours.
Trump's poll numbers saw a bump (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover we can't reopen the economy without the schools since people need childcare, and there's a shortage since the Daycare centers are accepting fewer kids. Again, polls go up when people think things are going back to normal.
The scary thing is that there's a lag time before infections and deaths. It's about 60-90 days.
Schools r
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One important distinction: "being open" and "being required to attend" are two very different things. Many are the former, but few that I've heard of are the latter.
Even here in Texas in a rural/suburban area that's in between the state's four largest urban centers (yet still 1.5 hours away from the closest), where people would assume that "MAGA by sending kids to school now!!!" mentality would run strong, neither of the local school districts are requiring students to come back in-person next year. While t
Re: Just to catch covid when their kids bring it h (Score:2)
Because unless they work from home google employees don't interact with their children?
If Google is doing this pretty concerning (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is probably more than any other non-government organization on the planet devoted to large-scale gathering and analyzing data. So if the people who are the experts about that think this probably isn't going away for a whole year, that's a cause for alarm. A large part of this is probably due to the US failures. A major part of the lockdowns was so things like testing and trace could be set up. But the US test and trace is in terrible shape, due in a large part to lack of federal coordination. Right now, only six US states are really in good shape in terms of test and trace and that's using that they are a 5/6 or 6/6 on the 6 point scale https://testandtrace.com/state-data/ [testandtrace.com] . If we insist on 6/6 then we're at only 3 US states right now. Worse, many states, especially in the South have essentially slid back from where they were. As the numbers have increased, their testing ability and their contact tracing are both being functionally overwhelmed. And even among the the states which do have good test and trace set up, things are still not great. For example, Connecticut does have strong contact tracing set up, but last week CT's estimated R_t passed above 1 for the first time in a month https://rt.live/ [rt.live].
People need to continue to social distance, don't visit people or friends if you don't need to. And whenever you go outside wear a mask. If you do interact with friends, do so while at a distance, while wearing masks. And don't think that a mask on a chin or a mask that leaves the nose uncovered is going to make a difference. The mask is a physical barrier, not a magic talisman.
Re:If Google is doing this pretty concerning (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe they just noticed that it hasn't had any negative effect on productivity, maybe even a positive one, and decided that to extend the experiment until then. A few months is one thing, after a year employees may be going stir crazy or moving away from they Valley so more data is needed before making a long term decision.
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Maybe they just noticed that it hasn't had any negative effect on productivity, maybe even a positive one, and decided that to extend the experiment until then. A few months is one thing, after a year employees may be going stir crazy or moving away from they Valley so more data is needed before making a long term decision.
Many employees have made plans to move away for a few months; this will almost certainly accelerate that trend since they can now make plans for a full year. Google is explicitly supportive of employees who choose to move (in-country... international moves can also be supportive but require case by case analysis) for the duration. I would expect this to be a particularly attractive option for employees with young children who have the option to move back to where their extended families are located, to take
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This is no more cause for alarm than all the other data we already had access to. Back in February the initial estimate of CFR was around 4% and the initial R-naught values were around 3, which means somewhere around 70% of the population would have to get it to reach herd immunity. Anyone with basic math knowledge can do this: 300 million people in the US times 70% times 4% means 8.4 million dead. Yes, the CFR always tends to drop during a pandemic as we get better at diagnosing and treating cases, but
Good idea but make sure you get out some everyone. (Score:1)
For pretty much any tech company, why do you really need to go in? Almost no-one does. You can all easily carry on remotely.
So this I see as a great move, that helps keep workers safer and frankly a lot happier - even with all of the Google perks they are missing out on.
Bu fo all the tech workers working at home full time now (not just Google), a warning - make sure you get out from time to time, on extended trips.
The reason is that if you truly stay at home all the time, you'll eventually end up weakenin
Something that I've seen pointed out a few times (Score:1)
Meanwhile it's safe to reopen the schools.
I'm pretty scared my roommate is going to be forced back into his office in January. Originally it was September but they backed down from that. He's working from home just fine. It's operations. Work comes in and you do it as fast as humanly possibly. But it really galls management that he's working from home.
At the r
Re: Something that I've seen pointed out a few tim (Score:2, Insightful)
What?
You equate the condition in a federal penitentiary with your room mates office?
Also, you do know that Michael Cohen was taken back into prison because he violated the terms of his release, right?
What are you planning to do with your list of 20 names of dead people under 50? Are you including the people that are falsely included as Covid-19 deaths when they die of other reasons?
Schools will open when they can do it safely, we can't just suspend education indefinitely, and Zoom classes don't work. It wou
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Also, you do know that Michael Cohen was taken back into prison because he violated the terms of his release, right?
He was released again on Friday. He's serving the remainder of his term confined to his mansion.
Actually something good in the details (Score:2)
It also frees staff to sign full-year leases elsewhere if they choose to move.
Interesting - I'm curious to see if that impacts SF area rents.