So, my company just reported that we had an employee test positive for COVID-19. He was here in Austin, but left to go home to India on 2/28. He stopped off in NYC on 2/29 and flew through Dubai at some point, and then reported to work in India for a couple of days before feeling ill, going to the doc, getting tested for COVID19, and coming up positive. While here in the Austin area, he worked and interacted with a handful of his team members, at the same campus where I office.
I work from home primarily and rarely go into the office, it's highly unlikely I would have come into contact with him, or anyone else he came into contact with.
But the real point here, is that my company has decided to move to work-from-home for ALL employees that can, thru 3/24. Some teams, primarily hardware engineers, won't be able to do that. The equipment they're designing/testing is all in labs that are on our campuses. But the rest of us in operational or finance or support roles, can, and must, work from home.
And I'll say that I believe that 3/24 date is just a punt. We have Spring Break for all Austin-area schools next week, and a huge number of employees would be out of office anyway. In reality, I suspect this is a first step at a soft quarantine that will last until mid-April at least. And this won't just be happening in Austin, and it won't just be happening at my company. This is going to become widespread in the very near future.
I don't know if I missed discussion of COVID-19 in other threads on this Forum? But I think it warrants some discussion and might even warrant its own thread.
Y'all stay safe out there. It's crawfish season, so be sure to wash your hands many times a day, as if you've just peeled and eaten six dozen spicy Cajun crawfish, and now you must remove your contact lenses. I'm no alarmist or prepper of doomsdayist advocate, but this stuff is serious and I'm not sure we, as a nation, are quite ready enough for it.
