Coronavirus


This is big news. The beginning of a massive change for financial centers. If this is indeed the first of many, what is the point of living in a big city anymore?

Look at New York as well, it's happening, the big earners are moving out of the cities and they won't be enticed back so easily.
 
Look at New York as well, it's happening, the big earners are moving out of the cities and they won't be enticed back so easily.

Seeing it in Manchester too. Lots of business who support city workers, sandwich shops and the like are going to go bust.

...and all that office space for rent...
 
This is big news. The beginning of a massive change for financial centers. If this is indeed the first of many, what is the point of living in a big city anymore?

It is quite fascinating to see just how quickly attitudes have changed.

For decades, many firms (apart from IT, primarily) resisted remote working arrangements and argued that people needed to work together so as to develop synergies, and that if managers couldn't see employees, they wouldn't know if they were working.

Then the COVID-19 coronavirus hit and, all of a sudden, firms switched to working from home and yet people are still getting the work done.
 
Because people have a defeatist mindset. I went through Sept 11 and the Great Recession. This is no different than people saying you shouldn't live in a building taller than 3 storeys because they saw some poor bloke who got stuck going down the stairs at the World Trade Centre.

No compromise, no surrender should be our motto.
 
It is quite fascinating to see just how quickly attitudes have changed.

For decades, many firms (apart from IT, primarily) resisted remote working arrangements and argued that people needed to work together so as to develop synergies, and that if managers couldn't see employees, they wouldn't know if they were working.

Then the COVID-19 coronavirus hit and, all of a sudden, firms switched to working from home and yet people are still getting the work done.

True, however in my mind the one big difference, this time, is technology. Back during 9/11, I couldn't see if/how people were working. Now we have zoom and whatsapp and facetime and teams and whatnot. We are interconnected 24/7, and every single employee in all my teams, across 10 countries, can be reached at the touch of a button. We hold meetings where 20 people from all over the world join, and we work together, and things are moving. People are not on 14.4k modem lines, everyone has massive bandwidth. People can work from anywhere they like, and this makes them (for the most part) happy and more productive.

I am not sure cities are coming back from this one...
 
Because people have a defeatist mindset. I went through Sept 11 and the Great Recession. This is no different than people saying you shouldn't live in a building taller than 3 storeys because they saw some poor bloke who got stuck going down the stairs at the World Trade Centre.

No compromise, no surrender should be our motto.

Historically, high density cities are not a good place to be in a plague. As has proved this time too. There will be some who find being out of cities and the daily commute a much more productive and rewarding experience.

But the move out of the cities has been happening for quite some time. Look at the white/middle class flight out of London.

True, however in my mind the one big difference, this time, is technology. Back during 9/11, I couldn't see if/how people were working. Now we have zoom and whatsapp and facetime and teams and whatnot. We are interconnected 24/7, and every single employee in all my teams, across 10 countries, can be reached at the touch of a button. We hold meetings where 20 people from all over the world join, and we work together, and things are moving. People are not on 14.4k modem lines, everyone has massive bandwidth. People can work from anywhere they like, and this makes them (for the most part) happy and more productive.

I am not sure cities are coming back from this one...

The lock downs have certainly given an impetus on the remote working front. For those with long commutes each day, who are now working from home seamlessly, it must be noticeable the improvement in productivity and well-being.

Last year I was looking for another expensive office and fate intervened with a landlord who let us down and so we moved ''temporary'' to managed offices. Turned out to be the best move of all. Saved a fortune on office rent, rationalized the infrastructure and moved to the Cloud and linked two offices working here and in Italy with a shared working space, databases and folders.

The reality is, I could have everyone working from home permanently without any loss of efficiency or effectiveness.
 

“Last month, a friend who was going to stop by Nagamootoo’s sister’s house to say hello abruptly changed her mind when she found out Nagamootoo would be there. The friend said she was concerned she could catch the coronavirus and bring it home to her relatives, despite Nagamootoo’s negative tests.

‘I spent 10 minutes trying to reassure her, but at the end of the day, you can’t blame anyone for wanting to be safe around their family,’ Nagamootoo, a personal trainer, said. Still, it made her feel like she had the plague, she said, and sent her into a depression that she could not shake for a couple of weeks.”

It could also be her instagram profile is called fitbitch but who knows.
 

"Of the 350 people called to turn up for testing after a busy night at Bilbao's Back&Stage nightclub last month, at least 34 proved positive, the kind of result that has prompted an agreement between Spain's authorities to close down all nightlife after 01:00.

'It was like any other night at the club and many people were not wearing a face mask even when dancing. I was among the first to take mine off,' 18-year-old Arkaitz Serrano told newspaper El País."

You have to wear a face mask when dancing? What if you're grinding? Or twerking?
 

Two years? This is coming from the agency that said no need to wear masks, never bothered to find patient zero and said human to human transmission isn't likely.

What diseases has this organisation eradicated as a track record? Polio? Smallpox? Measles? SARS? MERS? Ebola?
 

In my province it is age 9. I read some places in Europe have age 4 or 5. WHO has age 12. But you can't leave the front door of your flat to go bin the rubbish without a mask age 2 and upwards. Same for public transit and public indoor areas.
 

"'This is a virus that is going to be with us forever in some form or another, and almost certainly will require repeated vaccinations,' he said.

'So, a bit like flu, people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals.'"

This is like going to that doctor who says your pain is chronic and there's nothing you can do about it.

Repeated vaccinations - so one quarter I will do the Chinese vaccine, then Russian, then the Oxford one, then....
 
A lot of them get sent into situations where PPE looks to be optional. Not just protests but anti-coronavirus or anti-austerity picketing.

I don't envy them but then that's like a firefighter not wanting to run into a burning building.

Cops have to interact with a lot of people each day, in uncontrolled environments. So that’s no surprise.

The irony is that a lot of the same people waiving Thin Blue Line flags are the ones backing conspiracy theories and denying the seriousness of COVID19.
 

“Victoria has been in a six-week lockdown since July to curb a coronavirus outbreak that has fuelled Australia's second wave. Authorities have imposed stay-at-home rules and a curfew in Melbourne, the state capital. The lockdown has closed many businesses and banned gatherings around the state.

Victoria accounts for 75% of Australia's total infections and 90% of all deaths. The state reported 11 deaths on Saturday and more than 70 new infections - down from the peak of 725 new infections on 5 August but more than health officials had hoped for five weeks after the restrictions came in.”

Bad for fxh.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom