COVID-19 Aftermath: What will change?

Ryanb said:
I
Look back at all of the outbreaks of diseases in the past - Smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, polio, measles etc., this is just another one that will be added to the list and we just happen to be living through it. W
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All those epidemics happened before we had MS Teams and WebEx.

The one change I see happening from this is that industries that were hostile to telework will learn to embrace it. No need to pay people to drive to a meeting location if you can just link them in from wherever they are (oh, and people will eventually learn how to 'mute' their microphone while they are on a conference).

hope will change, is the sanitation standards of society. I’ve seen a lot of public places take extra precautions to sanitize their facilities and I hope that continues.
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Our hospital cafeteria being a good example. The moment you get up, someone with a small bucket and a rag comes over to wipe down the table. I doubt that luxury will remain.

Finally people keep a few steps of distance while you stand in line or even while you try to pour yourself a cup of coffee. Not sure why people have no sense of personal space.
 
weilke said:
All those epidemics happened before we had MS Teams and WebEx.

. . . (oh, and people will eventually learn how to 'mute' their microphone while they are on a conference). . .
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Lol, people will never learn. There’s always going to be that one a-hole who has echo/feedback or his music playing in the background of a meeting.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Vaccines aren’t required for us to return to normal. Life went on with SARS, swine flu, etc without vaccines being available, same goes with certain strains of influenza every year.
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SARS, swine flu, etc were nothing like COVID-19.

German guy said:
I wonder if this will have any long term effects on airlines or if they will quickly bounce back once all of this is over? I guess that people will be hungry to go places after being forced to stay at home for weeks or months.
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Trans States and Compass are already dead. So is Flybe (UK). So at least those few will not "bounce back".

Jim K said:
What are will do is add a little more socialism and go right back to turning a blind eye to an awful regime so long as their peasants continue to make our crap for next to nothing.
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That's what pure capitalism gets you, though.
 
I've spent the past week setting people up to work from home. Most of them don't know if they have a Windows or Mac computer. The virus seems easier to deal with.
 
chartbundle said:
Once supplies return to normal I'm going to consider anything less than 48 rolls of toilet paper, 24 rolls of paper towels, 2 gallons of alcohol, 2 boxes of gloves and 2 boxes of masks in the house an emergency and go to Costco right then.
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That is true but the problem I see is that I have said something similar for past disasters and it didn't help.
After we had the fires here in 2011, everyone had a list of things to keep on hand. Except the next fire is probably not going to happen for 50 years.
Same with heavy rains and flooding. Different list of things and actions.
We get ice storms with no power in M10 weather for a week. Where is the list for that again?
If you are in a tornado or hurricane area; another list.
There will be overlap on items and actions but it can be difficult to be prepared for everything. The things you thought you'd need will be unnecessary; and the things you ended up really needing were not planned for.
 
I find these comments comparing this to the great depression...and as a precipitation to more government reach. I hate to admit that seems plausible.

The germaphobe in me would like to think that better hand washing practices and the like will come out of it.... but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

azure said:
I have always been of the opinion that the online version of the course was inferior to the in-person version. That could change, though, now that we have much higher bandwidth available in most parts of the country, allowing streaming video and real online "classrooms" via teleconference software like Go To Meeting.
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Could be completely unfounded based on garbage...and showing my age....but I have the same feeling. Similar to Universities in Strip Malls that you see everywhere now. Not based on anything but "gut feel" but I personally just don't hold as high of an opinion of a degree from one of the online universities or a college in a strip mall as I do of one from an established brick and mortar traditional university.

High school in my area requires at least one on-line course credit through Fl Virtual School. As a rising Freshman my son took some sort of health/PE thing to get his credit. My opinion is that it really enabled using his expertise in "doing as little as possible".

That said, I have also been of the opinion throughout the years of my kids in school that there seems to be a tremendous amount of time wasted...some days where they don't seem to do much at all of any scholastic value......but there is value I think in those times too (social, patience in waiting, feeling the reward in little things, and all sorts of subtle things)...and a lot of that seems to get lost in doing things virtually.

I do think this stands a good chance of encouraging better online stuff after this. I'm hopeful that my employer will be a bit more open to me working remotely. I tried Monday to get motion towards setting me up to work from home but so far they want me in the building so that I can interact with other departments as needed...even though on paper they are saying we should limit those interactions through use of the "intercom system" (aka Telephone)...and ignoring the fact that I routinely have very little face to face interactions with anyone... and spend very little time on the phone. It's all computer work.
 
Brad Z said:
I've always thought that the current educational delivery method for higher universities was inefficient and unnecessarily unnecessary. The concept of going away and living on campus for four years is a relatively recent trend for the middle class, and I expect that online education will get a boost from being a marginal product of questionable for-profit universities, to being a bonafide coat effective alternative to traditional universities.
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I work in higher ed in IT, not teaching. We have some online offerings and now after a week of scrambling everyone is online. My personal opinion is that online is not the same quality. That isn't to say it isn't a good alternative and won't get better. Honestly I would have been a great candidate for online if it was available when I was a student as I was working full time and sleeping very little. It would have given me the flexibility to have a somewhat normal life.

Most current online classes are taught much like a correspondence course. The student does a lot of reading and self learning and then reacts to that through papers, assignments and online chats. Live interaction with faculty is almost zero. The curriculum is pre-written and just about anyone can deliver it. The people delivering it are instructors or in worst case "facilitators" who just usher the student through the process. It obviously doesn't work well for lab sciences. I will say at our school our online courses are taught mostly by our actual faculty but this is expensive and probably will happen less as the program grows.

I do think that Higher Ed needs some revamping but we have to remember that college isn't just about learning book stuff. It is about learning how to learn. Learning to become a critical thinker. Learning how to live and interact with other people. Learning how to negotiate. These things are tougher to teach online.

One last thing, people often go off on the price of higher ed. There is something the news and the critics NEVER tell you. NOBODY but the very rich pays full price. Our current discount rate is aver 60%. Most schools are well over 50% so when you see those high tuition number cut it in half. Not saying it isn't expensive but housing, feeding and providing all the amenities that are expected at most colleges today is not cheap. I can tell you this at the small private I work for salaries are well below what people can make in industry. Big schools are different.
 
Recent students seem to have lost critical thinking skills, practical skills, and independent self worth.

Those who are in the workplace related to their education can (seem to, anyway) do the job... As it exists. There seems to be little innovation or progression. And they seem to need a lot more pats on the back for doing their job.

This was attributed to millennials initially, but seems to have continued, gotten worse.

WWII gave us the "greatest generation" who just seem now to want everyone to "stay off my lawn." But it was a generation that worked as a team to improve life and innovate.

I hope that this current challenge brings us a greater generation... Not one looking for free stuff, but one creating, innovating, and improving.

fly to the scene of the incident, or be recovered at the scene of the tragedy
 
We've definitely got to re-think some things. Also, for those advocating mass transportation - this is why I like my car and small plane!
 
wsuffa said:
Well, it has shown the limits of freedom and the expansive emergency/martial law powers by those elected. We could go one of two ways: limit those powers and constrain government OR become more totalitarian.

Politico.com has a much more extensive analysis.
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I agree. The lack of pushback is alarming. At the end of this, it will send the message that Fascist totalitarianism is the accepted norm. Flash back to Nazi Germany, pre-WWII. What started as perceived reasonable economic control measures turned in to something horrible beyond imagination. The government is just going to up the ante for the next issue that comes about. And that's pretty tough to do at this point if you think about it.
 
I now have 6 different video conferencing software solutions on my mac. Everyone seems to use something else.
 
weilke said:
I now have 6 different video conferencing software solutions on my mac. Everyone seems to use something else.
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Same here - I wish the video conferencing would settle to about two.

While I believe WebEx is continually breaking their product as they enhance it, they're my #1.
Zoom is the choice of a couple of our partners.
Some of my customers use Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts, and lots of other one-offs.

Based on my experiences and use, I'd like to see it down to WebEx and Zoom.
 
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Sac Arrow said:
I agree. The lack of pushback is alarming. At the end of this, it will send the message that Fascist totalitarianism is the accepted norm. Flash back to Nazi Germany, pre-WWII. What started as perceived reasonable economic control measures turned in to something horrible beyond imagination. The government is just going to up the ante for the next issue that comes about. And that's pretty tough to do at this point if you think about it.
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Some of the politicians seem to be enjoying their "emergency powers" a little too much. Sadly this is the tip of the iceberg I fear.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Lol, people will never learn. There’s always going to be that one a-hole who has echo/feedback or his music playing in the background of a meeting.
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I've already caught one person that mishandled the mute button and then used a sink faucet.

At least I hope it was a sink faucet.
 
Hopefully a permanent decrease in the non-ironic use of the terms "pilot shortage" and "living the dream".
 
Rgbeard said:
Same here - I wish the video conferencing would settle to about two.

While I believe WebEx is continually breaking their product as they enhance it, they're my #1.
Zoom is the choice of a couple of our partners.
Come of my customers use Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts, and lots of other one-offs.

Based on my experiences and use, I'd like to see it down to WebEx and Zoom.
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We used to use WebEx but have been using Skype/Teams for almost two years now. No real problems so far for an S&P 500 company. Pair it with a Jabra USB speaker and you have a decent conference call system for use at home or for meetings of 5-10 people. The newer Jabras can link together so you can have 2-3 units on a long conference table to distribute audio and pick up voice from the multiple microphones.

Much cheaper than the expensive Avaya offerings and such.
 
I am about to make a scavenging run to Costco. Here is the shopping list my wife gave me:
- chicken (any kind)
- various cheeses
- green plantains
- a white 32in TV
- strawberries
- apples
- rice
- tortilla shells
.
.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Lol, people will never learn. There’s always going to be that one a-hole who has echo/feedback or his music playing in the background of a meeting.
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I think you’re getting too focused on minutia and missing the big picture. Nothing is perfect. Your complaint regards things that are manageable. In 1999 I implemented a project to roll out a new software product using A newfangled technology called WebEx to minimize the costs of training our integrators and distributors and for presenting it to customers. Yes, there were hitches like you describe, but they can be dealt with. It sounds like it’s just one of those things strikes a chord with you. Nothing is perfect.
 
MBDiagMan said:
I think you’re getting too focused on minutia and missing the big picture. Nothing is perfect. Your complaint regards things that are manageable. In 1999 I implemented a project to roll out a new software product using A newfangled technology called WebEx to minimize the costs of training our integrators and distributors and for presenting it to customers. Yes, there were hitches like you describe, but they can be dealt with. It sounds like it’s just one of those things strikes a chord with you. Nothing is perfect.
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I'm not focused on anything. I think you missed that my response to @Rgbeard was more tongue-in-cheek about the wishful thinking of people learning to mute their microphones for conference calls. As a matter of course, MS Teams/Skype give you the option in the settings to start calls on mute, which is usually the best solution. Many people call in and never need to say a word during the call, but fail to put their computer/cell phone/automobile hands-free system on mute upon first joining. It's funny because it always seems to happen, and will likely continue to happen. It's even better when morons decide to switch over to an incoming call and we get the "on hold" beep or music, depending on the device they are calling in from.
 
DFH65 said:
One last thing, people often go off on the price of higher ed. There is something the news and the critics NEVER tell you. NOBODY but the very rich pays full price.
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Maybe true for small private schools, but at public universities everyone pays full price, and that price is skyrocketing as well.

CharlieD3 said:
Recent students seem to have lost critical thinking skills, practical skills, and independent self worth.
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That's because we no longer teach them how to think, we teach them how to color in the right oval on the test sheet.

Rgbeard said:
Same here - I wish the video conferencing would settle to about two.
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Yabut, what if one of them goes down? :eek:
 
weilke said:
I am about to make a scavenging run to Costco. Here is the shopping list my wife gave me:
- chicken (any kind)
- various cheeses
- green plantains
- a white 32in TV
- strawberries
- apples
- rice
- tortilla shells
.
.
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I hope she added Kirkland microwave popcorn to that list. Or you added it yourself. $9.99 for a box of 44 packages. Not bad price, and really good microwave popcorn.

Now back to your regularly scheduled rant... :p
 
SoonerAviator said:
As a matter of course, MS Teams/Skype give you the option in the settings to start calls on mute, which is usually the best solution. Many people call in and never need to say a word during the call, but fail to put their computer/cell phone/automobile hands-free system on mute upon first joining.
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I believe Teams also allows you to mute someone else.
 
DFH65 said:
Had you asked me this before 911 I would have answered differently. Now I don't know. After 911 this country caved to the terrorists. We changed who we are and how we react to things. The America I grew up in would have built the twin towers back up and floor or two taller in less than a year no matter what the cost just to thumb our noses at them. Instead we got the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and FISA courts.

What I hope happens is we realize dependence on China for critical supplies is idiotic. That this is just a blip and we can rebuild and make things better.

What will probably happen is all sorts of long lasting restrictions on freedom. More government run nonsense. More sheep looking to big brother to keep them "safe" and willing to give up freedom for safety. It all sickens me.
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I never understood the 9/11 reaction either. Our national sovereignty and way of life were never really under threat, realistically we just got sucker punched but I guess people just couldn't handle the idea that nobody was completely in control and that's why we gave up all that freedom and privacy? I'm just speculating, as I said I never understood why we reacted like we did.

Here I am again in another national 'event' with this covid situation. I'm sitting here at home trying to avoid trips out but knowing full well I can go buy groceries or get takeout whenever I need it. The power is on, the heat is on, the internet is on. I feel like what I'm going through is an inconvenience to help protect vulnerable parts of the population from infection. Just an inconvenience, yet there are all these people online talking about the situation like it's apocalyptic. There are guides popping up on how to psychologically cope with the situation... how to talk to your children about this. Really?

Is something just wrong with me and I should be afraid? None of this seems like that big of a deal to me. Grocery store sold out of ground beef and chicken so I had to eat steak. Oh no. Got a pork butt in the smoker right now since we can't go out to eat. My god the hardship! Oh and there's some disease out there that, if I even get it, gives me a .2%-3% chance of death depending on what source you go by. The horror. Literally my biggest fear right now is that this quarantine stuff will be extended and we won't be able to do the fly-in at rough river.
 
asicer said:
I believe Teams also allows you to mute someone else.
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That is correct, i think only if you are the conference call leader. Either way, there are some good tools out there for remote collaboration. SharePoint/SmartSheet are also good tools when information needs to be available and have multiple bands working in the same document.
 
asicer said:
I believe Teams also allows you to mute someone else.
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The thing is you have to know who the offender is. Difficult if you have lots of participants.

Some systems have a 'raises hand' feature where everyone is on mute until the organizer gives them the microphone.
 
Brad Z said:
I've always thought that the current educational delivery method for higher universities was inefficient and unnecessarily unnecessary. The concept of going away and living on campus for four years is a relatively recent trend for the middle class, and I expect that online education will get a boost from being a marginal product of questionable for-profit universities, to being a bonafide coat effective alternative to traditional universities.
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azure said:
Many universities (including my former employer) have been offering courses online for several years now. I taught one on a regular basis, and that was more than 5 years ago.

I have always been of the opinion that the online version of the course was inferior to the in-person version. That could change, though, now that we have much higher bandwidth available in most parts of the country, allowing streaming video and real online "classrooms" via teleconference software like Go To Meeting.

If there is a change in attitudes toward online education after this experience, it will more likely be because it will be seen to actually work now. In the past, that was much less true.
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There’s a lot more to college than classrooms. I know I learned as much outside the classroom as inside; by that I mean outside the curriculum. My kids have learned quite a bit in the environment versus the classroom too. Our youngest learned a huge amount studying abroad in Peru. Life is very different in other countries, especially when one is not in a first world country.

This may help online learning though, and that’s a good thing.
 
Our work has already been very virtual (global resources, WFH - work from home). I’m in IT at a bank. Most of the technical resources work from home 3 days/week. Pretty much all of us are working 100% from home right now. Even the business side is working ~50% from home at the moment.

We also had plans before COVID-19 to go to unassigned seats. That will reduce our office footprint and therefore costs. I’m not surprised as the floors look near vacant on a regular basis.
 
cowman said:
I never understood the 9/11 reaction either. Our national sovereignty and way of life were never really under threat, realistically we just got sucker punched but I guess people just couldn't handle the idea that nobody was completely in control and that's why we gave up all that freedom and privacy? I'm just speculating, as I said I never understood why we reacted like we did.

Here I am again in another national 'event' with this covid situation. I'm sitting here at home trying to avoid trips out but knowing full well I can go buy groceries or get takeout whenever I need it. The power is on, the heat is on, the internet is on. I feel like what I'm going through is an inconvenience to help protect vulnerable parts of the population from infection. Just an inconvenience, yet there are all these people online talking about the situation like it's apocalyptic. There are guides popping up on how to psychologically cope with the situation... how to talk to your children about this. Really?

Is something just wrong with me and I should be afraid? None of this seems like that big of a deal to me. Grocery store sold out of ground beef and chicken so I had to eat steak. Oh no. Got a pork butt in the smoker right now since we can't go out to eat. My god the hardship! Oh and there's some disease out there that, if I even get it, gives me a .2%-3% chance of death depending on what source you go by. The horror. Literally my biggest fear right now is that this quarantine stuff will be extended and we won't be able to do the fly-in at rough river.
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My biggest fear is that there will be an economic collapse due to tens of thousands of businesses going under due to the shutdown measures. I hope I'm wrong, but if we continue down this path, I don't see how we can avoid it.

Heh. Yeah, I'm bbq-ing chicken tonight because the steak choices were lame. But they were there. And I could do ribs, and corned beef rounds, or even nice looking juicy filets, which I am not biting at over twenty bucks a pound. And nobody else is either apparently. The bread shelves were barren. The locally baked fresh stuff was as well stocked as usual.
 
asicer said:
How did it go? Long lines? Massive shortages? Looting? Rioting?
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Busy saturday afternoon at Costco. No raw chicken (plenty of rotisserie). No TP. No TV dinners. They did have a sheriffs deputy who was hanging out with the receipt-checker.
 
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I've got beef ribs in a water bath and the immersion circulator for Monday night dinner. We bought that from Costco and froze it along with other beef and chicken. Trader Joes market (in Orange County) was reasonably stocked this AM, so there is food available, including bread, but no TP. We won't starve, and if there is a food shortage, we're good for at least a month or two after that if not longer.

I too worry about the small mom-n-pops surviving. I will order delivery to keep some in business. I stopped in a mom-n-pop auto store today to have a flywheel machined, and bought another $70 in motor oil and supplies there to (hopefully help) keep them in business.
 
asicer said:
How did it go? Long lines? Massive shortages? Looting? Rioting?
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My wife and I were at one of the local Costcos yesterday. Never seen the parking lot so empty. Sorry we didn't need gas as I've never seen the "lines" so short there, either.

They did change the entry a bit, and had a sign up stating what they were sold out of. TP, obviously, was on that list. They were limiting people to 1 package of paper towels (which we needed), so we bought one. That will keep us in good shape for several months.

So, no long lines, no massive shortages of very much, no looting and no rioting. Sorry to disappoint you. :p
 
So far the only potential I see is a massive restructuring in how healthcare is provided in this country. Fundamentally, the current system is in such a way that surge response and spare capacity are not allowed. There is extensive effort used squeeze every last piece of efficiency in the system.
To solve this; as a society we will spend mega bucks. The question is which solution will win.
This will only happen if COVID-19 runs for months and we get ample evidence how our system is not structured to meet the demand.

Tim
 
weilke said:
The thing is you have to know who the offender is. Difficult if you have lots of participants.

Some systems have a 'raises hand' feature where everyone is on mute until the organizer gives them the microphone.
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Teams has a bar that lights up under the participant(s) it is picking up sound from on the microphones which is used to help the group know who is speaking when they aren’t familiar with everyone’s voice (neat feature). You can usually narrow it down using that or just mute everyone (If you’re the meeting organizer). I believe you can Un-Mute people as well, which I haven’t used, but could be interesting.

Here’s a funny video that seems apropos.

https://www.facebook.com/870140230/posts/10163064743335231/?d=n
 
tspear said:
So far the only potential I see is a massive restructuring in how healthcare is provided in this country. Fundamentally, the current system is in such a way that surge response and spare capacity are not allowed. There is extensive effort used squeeze every last piece of efficiency in the system.
To solve this; as a society we will spend mega bucks. The question is which solution will win.
This will only happen if COVID-19 runs for months and we get ample evidence how our system is not structured to meet the demand.

Tim
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We'll see at the tail end, but so far I have a hard time concluding that a centrally planned health buerocracy a la Italy is the way to go.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Teams has a bar that lights up under the participant(s) it is picking up sound from on the microphones which is used to help the group know who is speaking when they aren’t familiar with everyone’s voice (neat feature). You can usually narrow it down using that or just mute everyone (If you’re the meeting organizer). I believe you can Un-Mute people as well, which I haven’t used, but could be interesting.

Here’s a funny video that seems apropos.

https://www.facebook.com/870140230/posts/10163064743335231/?d=n
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Lol. Yes, there is a learning curve involved.

Most of the issues lampooned in the video really only apply to call-in conferencing solutions. On something like MS Teams or WebEx it is pretty easy to remain productive. Of courset its funny if someones dog or kid pokes their head into the video feed, but again, that's where the learning comes in. For many in the workplace, this week has been the first time that they had to navigate this tool, I anticipate that many will learn to love it. As I noted above, I anticipate that telework and remote collaboration will get a major boost out of this event.
 
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