Covid-19

[weijian]

This post is mostly on Meta (or Facebook) but I thought the take-away is how normalization to pre-covid 19 continues to accelerate.

As the pandemic started to end, there were only a few brave souls who were willing to come out and say "get your axx back to the office", Jamie Dimon been one that I can recall.

Yes, WFH (work from home) is a permanent feature now. But as times get hard, my suspect is that WFH will probably turn out to be more an exception than the norm. For example, this may disappoint some companies (eg. AirBnB) that are counting on this "work from home/anywhere" trend to accelerate.

ZUCK TURNS UP THE HEAT

By June of 2021, almost anyone could work wherever they wanted. At the same time, the company embarked on a massive hiring spree, growing its number of full-time employees by 62 percent, from 48,000 at the end of 2019 to more than 77,800.

During the June 30th call, parts of which were earlier reported by Reuters and The New York Times, Zuckerberg made clear that his company, in its pandemic era of expansion, had become too soft. It was time for a work culture reboot.

“I think during a lot of the COVID period, I kind of bias[ed] towards more flexibility and convenience for people,” he said. But now, he’d noticed people making personal appointments in the middle of the day, making it hard for even the CEO to get everyone to attend a meeting.

“Given the intensity of the environment that we’re in right now,” he continued, “I think now the right way to bias is more towards ‘let’s try to make the decision today, not wait until next week.’” From now on, employees were told to be available for meetings midday California time.

https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-z...s-pressure

[CY09]

Personally I prefer WFH. My work can be done anywhere as long as VPN is available.

To me, not going to office saves me 45 minutes each journey leg and I can make my own lunch at home. Saves me on transportation and outside food expense.

However, the downside to businesses is that if consumers prefer staying in their own bubble and visit only their neighbourhood. There is not much economic activity for commercial operators and they may not have the means to sustain advertising when you cant attract that much footfall after all.

[Wildreamz]

Personally I prefer WFH. My work can be done anywhere as long as VPN is available.

To me, not going to office saves me 45 minutes each journey leg and I can make my own lunch at home. Saves me on transportation and outside food expense.

However, the downside to businesses is that if consumers prefer staying in their own bubble and visit only their neighbourhood. There is not much economic activity for commercial operators and they may not have the means to sustain advertising when you cant attract that much footfall after all.

This is why I'm bullish the metaverse, people have always stayed in their own bubble, just that the (digital) bubble now is much bigger than it seems on the surface.

[weijian]

There is this mental bias (I cannot remember what it is called) that we like to project our own experience/preferences onto what the general crowd wants (or should want).

As much as there are benefits for the individual, I also foresee many issues when we zoom out to the group. It is the Tragedy of the Commons problem:

(1) It is probably alright for 1 or 2 experienced and disciplined persons to WFH. But as a group gets bigger, more inexperienced and non-disciplined persons will appear. The end result is probably the overall productivity of the group starts to reduce.

(2) WFH becomes the "haves" and the "have not" workforce decides that it is time to switch to the "haves" camp. So the available workforce for service based jobs that require a physical presence (eg. restaurant workers, nurses, security guards, nannies) keeps shrinking. Job wages have to rise to attract people and this only feeds into the inflation spiral.

[specuvestor]

Agree with Weijian. For example the internet was originally intended for transfer of information and facts.

As the group becomes bigger personal bias and vice became dominant. Rules then become necessary and the pendulum swings back. Police are there usually for <10% of the people but this 10% can create huge issue for the other 90%. That's the tipping point theory

Ideals and pragmatic implementation are often very different. It's good to have an ideal eventuality (which might never be reached) but implementation has to be pragmatic within constraints, including human psychology and incentive system

And the man is right: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/i...-practical

[weijian]

The cure for zero covid policy, is zero for many other things.

More Chinese women delay or give up on having babies after zero-Covid ordeal

“China’s zero-Covid policy has led to a zero economy, zero marriages, zero fertility.”

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/governm...vid-ordeal

[specuvestor]

Thought it’s interesting to revisit this thread on our understanding of how things evolved. With proper medical attention the mortality is somewhere between 0.03% to 0.2% approximated with Singapore’s experience in article below

This has been a harrowing and enlightening experience and also hopefully one of a kind. Also show the different policies at work and the importance of decision makers, from Taiwan to HK.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapor...es-2982301

I think the latest restrictions in place are pre-emptive moves. Thou a bitter pill to swallow for many business owners, it is perhaps the right move for the greater good of community and nation. Given our super dense population, once the active infection cases overrun our healthcare system, there’s a real possibility we will see SAF trucks activated to transport hundreds of corpses for cremation. Every single day.

Interesting. After doomsday scenario on China till today nobody even quote China numbers now (except maybe yours truly on 16 March), we have Singapore possibly going apocolypse. I do agree that we have to not overload the health system which is why I support Singapore's incremental and balanced approach.

VB look at fundamentals, numbers and generally a scientific approach. This is not spanish flu or bubonic plague. It has characteristics of flu but more infectious (which is causing the panic and overwhelming the system) and mortality probably <1% vs 0.1% for flu. In case some think I am too complacent, I was truly fearful during SARS because the numbers say differently.

[weijian]

The Middle Kingdom finally gets its own approved mRNA vaccine. A lot of people had suffered or even had to pay with their own lives. We can only connect the dots forward, and hope that the those sacrifices will be worth the insistence on developing its own vaccines for its own "Great Leap Forward" of its local biotech industry.

China approves its first mRNA vaccine, from domestic drugmaker CSPC

CSPS said its vaccine trials showed incidents of adverse effects were substantially lower in an elderly group compared with an adult group, which could be a boon for China as it has stressed the need to focus on vaccinating and boosting its vulnerable elderly population.

The company said its independently developed mRNA vaccine SYS6006 targets some major Omicron variants and its booster dose showed good neutralization effect against Omicron subvariants BA.5, BF.7, BQ.1.1., XBB.1.5 and CH.1.1. in clinical trials.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/interna...maker-cspc