Wow! Where are you located?
Grand Rapids, MI
Just an update from Montana, where we have 100% contact tracing. Hereâs is what theyâve found.
Cases seem to be transmitted at:
- Work
- Large family gatherings
- Weddings
- Widespread surveillance has picked up very few cases not associated with a known cluster.
We have also had cases rise from 0-1 per day to around 50 per day where it seems to be stabilizing. Itâs unclear how much of this is from tourism, but I suspect the wedding outbreaks may be. We have done truly massive testing for our population size and our % positive remains under 1%.
Why the gov. is considering re-closing bars is unclear to me, but he hasnât done that yet.
All of this is despite 100% contact tracing from Day 1. I think that contact tracing yields very valuable information regarding transmission, but in terms of containment, may be a bit of a pipe dream, which I have wondered about all along since so many cases are asymptomatic.
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My workplace was supposed to start doing limited opening for very few employees starting about a week ago. Then, they decided to wait at a minimum until September 1. So the absolutely EARLIEST I could return to work now is Sept. 1âŚand even that seems unlikely, since my particular work doesnât require me to be in the office.
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Yeah. This is the problem with asymptomatic cases! I mean, donât get me wrong, Iâm GLAD most cases seem to be asymptomaticâŚbut it will make actually containing COVID next to impossible.
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so, masks!?
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Yes! 
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Yeah, we had just started working from 2 days a week before the pandemic started. So it was an easy transition to work at home all the time. I hope we never go back.
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My sister is an elementary school teacher in the Houston area (Woodlands) and wrote this, which might be relevant to some here:
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We expect way to much from our elementary school teachers.
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I taught kindergarten for two years. No more: morning hugs, students reaching for a teacherâs hand as they walk down the hall, wiping tears away on the first day of school (or in January when your child misses you all over again).
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Literally tearing up. Ugh. I hate Covid.
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I do appreciate being able to telecommute long term. Before COVID-19, I worked at home once a week to give myself a break from traffic. I would work on specific tasks and I would bring everything I needed home with me. We only have desktops. I used my own equipment at home because the State of CA does not support telecommute.
Now with COVID-19, almost the whole office has been telecommuting since March 17th. But because the State never supported telecommuting, we are not set up to telecommute easily. None of us have office issued laptops, which would allow us to access the office network for files and our databases. Most of us donât have an ergonomic set up at home. Work would be so much easier on my wide double screen at work verses my tiny, single laptop screen. I have a hard time scrolling and seeing engineering drawings on my laptop screen. I donât want to telecommute long term permanently. I want to be able to go to the office at least once a week to print stuff, search the databases and files, and use my double screen. Plus, I work a whole lot harder at home!
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That is the one thing I am thankful for - that I can work from home. I was roughly 50/50 before Covid, 100% since March 15. There are no plans for us to return to the office - at least thru September. I know many of us are hoping for long term. In my case, my team is in different cities. We are used to doing all meetings via Skype. I do have a work issued laptop so no connection issues. I did have a second monitor provided but upgraded on my own to a larger ultra-wide so my setup is better at home than in the office. I donât miss my commute!
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That would be hard to work at home without proper equipment. We were all allowed to take monitors and whatever else we needed from the office. I have 2 monitors and my laptop dock. Also, we used to be desktop only too⌠we were one of the last departments to switch over to laptops. Itâs so nice!
The only thing I didnât take home was my work chair⌠I bought my own and my own wireless mouse/keyboard. I just wrote it off as an expense on my tax return. Hopefully after all this Covid stuff, your company might think about work at home as a more permanent solution and offer more help.
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Donât get me wrong, I love the 1 minute commute from my breakfast table to my work area each morning!
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I used to think I hated working. Until we - DH, DD and me - spent the summer working at a guest ranch in Colorado. Even tho my job was in the laundry, it was a short stroll from my cabin. I thoroughly enjoyed that summer. 
It had been the commute I didnât care for.
(Also didnât hurt that the employees dining room was a short stroll in another direction - no cooking !!)
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From my understanding the farther the distance, the lower the risk (for example, 8 ft is less risk than 6 ft), but the general consensus seems to be that once the distance is less than 6 ft, the risk goes up substantially. The reasoning is that large droplets can travel up to 6 ft. Personally, I think 3 ft is a terrible idea.
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Here is another thought I have, but havenât read anything about. From what I understand, the schools will not let kids with symptoms attend with symptoms. Anyone who has been around young kids in school knows that during cold and fly season, half the kids are coughing or have runny noses. How is that going to work?
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