How are you managing with the Covid-19 pandemic?

[lteschler]

For engineers still working, I am wondering how people are managing the social distancing and hygiene guidelines for the Covid-19 virus. Do you find you can work from home? Do you come into work and just stay away from people somehow? Do you try to disinfect your work surfaces? Though it is not really practical to wipe down things like test instruments with bleach, I'm wondering if a germicidal UV light might do the trick. Feel free to chime in with your experiences.

 

[DerStrom8]

Today was my first day working from home. Prior to that, we mostly tried to keep in-person meetings to a minimum. We use Microsoft Teams or emails for group or one-on-one discussions.

If in-person discussions were absolutely necessary, we would select a room large enough to allow everyone to stand or be seated at least 6 feet apart, per CDC recommendations.

There were hand sanitizer dispensers every 20 feet or so, one on every table in the conference and training rooms and in the cafeterias and several mounted along the walls.

I kept one small travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer in my car, one on my desk, and one in my pocket. Every time I touched a door handle, copier, mouse & keyboard, or other commonly-touched surface, I would sanitize, or if I was near a bathroom, I would wash immediately.

I would scrub my hands with a liberal amount of soap for 20 seconds prior to rinsing with hot water.

I would then use the paper towels to turn off the faucet, dry my hands, and open the doors.

I dedicated different portions of my sweatshirt sleeves to different functions. The very ends I would use to open doors if no paper towels were available. The center (elbow) portion would be used to cover sneezes or coughs. the upper (shoulder) portion would be used to rub or scratch my face if I had an itch or something of that sort.

When possible, I would open swinging doors by turning my back to them and pushing them open. This also worked for outward-swinging doors with a push-bar latch.

Any time I blew my nose, I would use a tissue and immediately, before touching anything else, sanitize using the travel-size bottle at my desk.

I would always wash my hands or sanitize before consuming food or drink.

Hot liquids were a staple. The virus is said to begin in the throat, so keeping it moist using hot liquids help protect your throat from becoming a breeding ground for the virus.

No communal snacks (such as donuts) allowed in the break rooms.

These are just a few of the methods we used to minimize the spread of the virus. To my knowledge, nobody at the company where I work has contracted the virus.

 

[picbits]

We're still working (UK) - split shifts from next week and disinfecting between shifts to minimise contact. While we have the test facilities running, I am required there in person. We sort out breakdowns / modifications constantly during the day. I stongly suspect that we will be closing for a while soon, almost every other subsidiary in Europe has been closed. As soon as it is closed, I go into design mode and work from home.

 

[atferrari]

Myself (73yo) permanently at home. As a right handed person, I was advised to use my left hand to handle as many tasks as possible, even opening doors or locking them. That way, all automatic things you do, as touching, your face, nose, lips, do imply less risk.

I got used after few hours.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Well there's only two of us where I work anyway, so it's pretty isolated as it is - but the 'boss' decided this morning that we should split to different shifts. So I'm working until 14:00, and he comes in a bit later than that (he lives fairly close, walking distance) and works until he feels like going home

Just been checking the cameras, and he's just turned up!

We can both work at home to a considerable extent, so I've stuck some boards and components in the back of the car, so I can assemble those at home if need be (or if I'm at work I can get them back out of the car, and assemble them there). I'm going to arrange some more stuff for the back of the car as well tomorrow, and I've already uploaded a load of documents, source code etc. that I can access from home, again if need be (I would have stuck it on a USB stick - but I couldn't find one?).

As we support the Water Industry, supplying goods and services to them, we're presumably in the category of 'key workers' so shouldn't need to shut down unless things get really desperate.

 

[schmitt trigger]

I am also working from home.

What I am finding is that the networking and meeting services are starting to become overloaded.

I sometimes get the message: "Lines are busy now, please try later".

Cell phone carriers are also experiencing lack of capacity issues. I use AT&T, my wife uses T-Mobile.
Her connection is consistently more reliable than mine.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Well in support of the stricter measures here now, I'm mostly working from home.

 

[Pommie]

Can anyone explain, or have a theory on the very different death rates from different counties?
Using just the closed cases I.E. got better or died, all data from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Australia looks to be doing very well (so far).

The world is a little worse,

Italy, wow

And, the UK,

For some reason, the US doesn't have the same panel but their stats are dead:784 recovered:379. Pretty much the same as UK.

I'm hoping that the figures are caused by mass under reporting of mild cases. If the death rate is only 1% then the UK must have had ~42,000 recovered cases that weren't ill enough to get tested.

Mike.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Possibly the UK (and the USA) figures are only those admitted to hospital?. As far as I'm aware the situation is that if you present symptoms you self isolate, only if it gets seriously worse will anything be done, or you will even be seen by anyone, and potentially moved to hospital.

 

[Pommie]

I assumed the discrepancy was mass under reporting. Time will tell. We've not gone into full lock down yet but I feel it's not far away.

Mike.

 

[atferrari]

Well in support of the stricter measures here now, I'm mostly working from home.

View attachment 123820

Don't you use that device called "helping hands"?

 

[atferrari]

Can anyone explain, or have a theory on the very different death rates from different counties?
Using just the closed cases I.E. got better or died, all data from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Australia looks to be doing very well (so far).
View attachment 123821
The world is a little worse,
View attachment 123822
Italy, wow
View attachment 123823
And, the UK,
View attachment 123824

For some reason, the US doesn't have the same panel but their stats are dead:784 recovered:379. Pretty much the same as UK.

I'm hoping that the figures are caused by mass under reporting of mild cases. If the death rate is only 1% then the UK must have had ~42,000 recovered cases that weren't ill enough to get tested.

Mike.

Maybe it has to do with when the wave in each country started plus the degree of unpreparedness each one exhibited immediately after. With only 6 dead right now, I am sure we are running behind the lot. The worst is yet to come.

Myself at home for 8 days already, I left twice to the pharmacy for cardio medicines. Today going again.

 

[atferrari]

Hola Pommie

This link seems to provide a credible compendium

 

[alec_t]

It's hard to believe that little Iceland has more active cases than the whole of the Russian Federation.

 

[tvtech]

Heard a Dr. on TV saying in this time of Coronavirus staying at home we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should always finish things we start and we all could use more calm in our lives. I looked through my house to find things i'd started and hadn't finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiumun srciptuns, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner piss. An telum u luvum. And two hash yer wands, stafe day avrybobby!!!

 

[Inquisitive]

Heard a Dr. on TV saying in this time of Coronavirus staying at home we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should always finish things we start and we all could use more calm in our lives. I looked through my house to find things i'd started and hadn't finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiumun srciptuns, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner piss. An telum u luvum. And two hash yer wands, stafe day avrybobby!!!

ROFL. Thanks for that one tvtech, stay safe.

 

[gophert]

I assumed the discrepancy was mass under reporting. Time will tell. We've not gone into full lock down yet but I feel it's not far away.

Mike.

French and Italians and other Southern Europeans tend to kiss when they great each other. Italians tend to live with multiple generations in the same household, underreporting (lack of tests or political maneuvering), it will all be examined in the future.

 

[Pommie]

Whilst Europe is a disaster zone, I think the worst is yet to come in less developed countries. I also feel the US is going to be a nightmare.

Not sure how Australia is going to go. The new cases per day has dropped from ~25% to ~8% since everything closed last Monday. Hopefully, they (health authorities) are going to stay ahead of the curve.

Time will tell.

Mike.

 

[gophert]

Whilst Europe is a disaster zone, I think the worst is yet to come in less developed countries. I also feel the US is going to be a nightmare.

Not sure how Australia is going to go. The new cases per day has dropped from ~25% to ~8% since everything closed last Monday. Hopefully, they (health authorities) are going to stay ahead of the curve.

Time will tell.

Mike.

It takes competent leadership and citizens that trust science, scientists and those who report it. Good luck.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

French and Italians and other Southern Europeans tend to kiss when they great each other. Italians tend to live with multiple generations in the same household, underreporting (lack of tests or political maneuvering), it will all be examined in the future.

To be fair the Dutch do the kissing thing as well, but I think they do it twice and the French three times?.