Hacker News Reader

Comment by cknoxrun | Hacker News Reader

My co-founder and I are really struggling with the decisions ahead of us. We feel we should act quickly, and enforce our team to work from home, but the spread in our city is quite low for now. We also wonder how long this can go on, are we going to be isolated for months?

We are at a critical point where we have just closed our seed round this past week. We have both put so much energy and time into this moment and we were ready to work harder and focus on scaling and growth.

Of course, the more tragic situation around us makes our issues seem small. I think we will likely announce to our team to work from home starting Monday. How surreal.

View on HN

Here's what Paul Graham wrote on twitter:

> When you're dealing with exponential growth, the time to act is when it feels too early.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1237801364023017472

This is one of those times where it gets bad so quickly by the time you're starting to respond it's too late.

> the spread in our city is quite low for now

If you’re in the United States, where testing has been infuriatingly limited, the fact of the matter is you have no idea what the spread in your community is. The numbers aren’t low because nobody has the virus, they’re low because nobody has been tested. If we did actual testing, they might come in low or they might come in high, who knows. As it stands, nobody has any real idea just how bad the spread is here. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Given that, the safest course is to assume the spread is high, and act accordingly.

The state of Ohio has only 26 confirmed cases, but two days ago the Director of the Ohio Department of Health estimated that 1% of the state's population (100k) may be infected due to the high ratio of cases being community-spread [1].

This is the likely reason for such a high number of celebrities in the news testing positive -- it's already everywhere; they are the only ones getting tested.

[1] https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/ohio-de...

Not to downplay things, but celebrities may also be more likely to get it because they travel a lot and are in close contact with a lot of other people who also travel a lot.

That 100k number is for the whole world. It was a poorly worded tweet

She said it out loud. There's nothing confusing or ambiguous about it. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-ohio-health-offi...

Actually we do know one number :the total number of people in ICU is normal for this time of year. There are a handful of confirmed cases (I'm not sure if they are in ICU), but the total number of cases is still low.

It is hindsight, but expontial grow means that despite not testing we didn't have a problem two months ago. Maybe we should have been in lock down a week ago, but anything sooner would be overreacting and not necessary. Most of the US is on lock down now which seems like about the right time to start. No more than a week sooner can be seriously argued.

It takes about 7 days after developing symptoms for the hospitalized cases to come in.

Most people who get sick think its a normal cold. They stay at home for a week, and when they can barely breath anymore, they finally enter the emergency room.

Exactly. 2 weeks ago this was a worry but not significant as evidence by current ICU fill rates. Expect Washington, hopefully the rest of the country doesn't follow

Business and money is one thing. Money comes and goes, for the most part. Employees, their health and relationship with your company are a whole different matter.

If you make everyone work from home, you'll end up with a temporary loss in productivity (thus money, which again comes and goes). Even if one of them does get infected anyway, they won't spread it to the rest of the team. The relationship with your employees is preserved because you're not forcing them to take risks.

If you force them to work in the office, it's just a matter of time before all of them get sick. The productivity will drop to zero, yet you'll still have to pay them sick leave and their opinion of your company will be tainted forever because you and your greed are the reason they are now all sick.

Not to mention, this is all assuming your employees are relatively young and have no pre-existing medical conditions that would make the infection life-threatening. Otherwise, we're not just talking about relationships but actual lives being put at risk.

WFH. Do it now. Individual actions have outsized impact in the face of exponential growth.

The problem is twice as hard every time the number of cases doubles. If you don't want to work from home for many months, start working from home now.

Working from home isn't as bad as it seems. Modern collaboration tools are great. Our research group and wider laboratory have gotten into the swing of things within a week.

> Individual actions have outsized impact in the face of exponential growth.

Are you sure? I think it's the other way around. Nothing I can do (apart from staying completely indoors, which I can't because I don't have enough supplies (food, etc.) to last for months) can prevent me from being infected (eventually). Luckily I'm in the low-risk group (young); I advised my parents the latter (hopefully they're following my advice).

The combined actions of individuals counts. You alone don't mean much (but if you happen to be the one who needs ICU care it matters to you), but when you and a million others avoid going out for anything other than groceries (washing hands well after that trip) there are many less opportunities for this to spread.

Obviously there are a lot of people required to get groceries to you, but if you are not in medicine or groceries stay home. That is a large supply chain but sti tiny and even those people are not going to other functions which reduces risk

If working from home is an option, then you should absolutely make everyone work from home. Not let, make.

The spread may appear low in your city, but how much of that is from lack of testing? If your employees can work from home, it is best for you to implement work from home ASAP.

Businesses in Washington State have shuttered or gone to work from home over the last 3 weeks, had most businesses made this change earlier(eg: at the beginning of those 3 weeks) we would see much less spread and quicker easing of restrictions.

Is Alberta doing widespread Covid-19 testing yet? We had cases of teens with no international travel getting Covid-19 in February according to the Seattle Flu Study, there are likely more cases in Edmonton that exhibit minimal symptoms currently.

Seattle Flu Study: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-de...

Alberta has been testing at 1800 / million (7100 tests). For context when the US was at our point they were at 5 / million.

I was looking at the numbers for today (because I was curious about the U of A which has gone fully remote for course and exam delivery). There's a model in here https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... that you can plug numbers into. I would say work from home though, you'll feel absolutely devastated if one of your employees falls ill and you were the cause. Trust them to do their work remotely and they will reward that trust.

Hospital ICU units are not overwhelmed which puts a limit to total infections. (unless this is now less deadly I guess, an unlike win though)

> "Hospital ICU units are not overwhelmed which puts a limit to total infections."

I wouldn't say that; reports coming out of Seattle look pretty grim.

"...Reports from the Seattle area, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, indicate that some of the city’s hospitals are nearly overwhelmed. One hospital’s note to staff, shared with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, says the “local COVID-19 trajectory is likely to be similar to that of Northern Italy.” The hospital is down to a four-day supply of gloves..."

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/14/coronavirus-hospital-wor...

Definitely do it. Way more people are already infected than we know. You can be proactive or reactive, and if you’re reacting it’s already too late.

As a data point: my company liberalized work from home to every employee a week before the first case was detected in our state, under the assumption that it was either already here and just hadn't been discovered in testing yet, or would be very shortly.

When the first case was detected, the office was closed and work from home became mandatory at least through the beginning of April.

Why not work from home? Are your employees not able to get their job done remotely?

The right thing to do from every perspective is close your office. If any of your employees is has a risk factor and dies of covid you will spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have prevented it - trust me I know.

We went ahead and have all employees working remote for at least the next week and we will be evaluating the situation each week. I struggle with this decision as well feeling like maybe this is an overreaction but the reality is we should be able to function remotely and if doing so can help then we should do it. I’m optimistic our actions will help slow the spread

Here is a great breakdown of the curves and the risks[1]. Scroll to the heading "Risk-based model" or go directly to the spreadsheet[2]. Fill in the numbers for your area.

[1] https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/17YyCmjb2Z2QwMiRR...

Our Singapore office started working from home at beginning of Feb. Everyone in the office here (10 people) have very very young kids, or is pregnant. Don’t want anyone in the team getting sick and making their kids sick. Family is always more important than work. So everyone is working from home till this thing blows over.

In discussing similar issues around this crisis, I noticed that "Things that seem extreme today will, in just a few days, seem obvious, under-done, and late."

Thinking of the cancelation of the NBA season an how Mark Cuban's response was thar it seemed "crazy" and "surreal". Now, it seems obvious and late.

Don't wait - tell everyone now to work from home, prep like mad, and isolate hard.

The damage will be far less than anyone getting it. You'll also get down that critical learning curve far faster.

Congratulations, Good luck, stay well.

Imo (and free advice is best left unheeded): Better that you miss out on this opportunity and get to keep your IP and try again than risk you and your employees contracting a severe respritory illness.

People will understand disruptions due to Covid. It's not business as normal. Google told the entire north american staff to stay home. Be glad that you can still all be relatively productive while remote, and enjoy your runway while you don't have to pay for the lights in your offices.

Take comfort in knowing the whole world will slow down, your competitors included.

However, the rent on your offices, the interest on your mortgage, and your school fees will not.

Maybe to put a more positive spin on it: the sooner you act the more leeway you have. Better that you realize now that someone has to come in and install a remote power switch on some server. In a week it might be a bit harder to ask someone to shoot over to BestBuy and pick it up. The same goes for your workers: they might appreciate some time to set up their home office.

Exponential growth means employee expectations will go from "completely safe at work" to "don't leave home except for food" pretty fast. You don't want to be that guy who asks employees to violate the (possibly government imposed) lock down to keep the lights on.

what if you wait and your employees get sick? if you're in tech, just implement a work from home policy right now. don't wait for the gov to do so. it's a matter of time. - a French

I'm in the same position. More than a week ago I wrote an all-hands email to ensure that people realize that if they can work from home they should work from home and that we'd never force them to travel or be in the office if they do not want to and do not feel that it is in their best interest to do so. And of course it goes without saying that any indication of cold or flu like symptoms should cause someone to stay home.

As a co-founder/CEO of any company your first responsibility is for the health of your employees and those that depend on them. If you play games with that then you should not be in a leadership position to begin with.

Here is the full text of our email, feel free to C&P:

   As you are no doubt aware there is a virus on the loose
   and it isn't pretty.

   The better ways to acquire it are to spend some time with 
   a bunch of total strangers in close confinement sharing
   each others air. This includes all forms of public
   transport.

   These are exceptional (hopefully!) circumstances and I want to 
   make several things perfectly clear:

   (1) You do not have to travel if you do not want to,
     there is no obligation to participate in any of 
     the jobs in the next coming weeks/months and
     not participating will *never* be held against 
     you in any form. You may opt to participate 
     remotely instead of on-site without financial 
     penalty.

   (2) If you do travel, please take all precautions
     possible to avoid getting ill, I'd really hate 
     myself if it turns out that we caused people to 
     fall ill (or worse) on account of the work we do, 
     your health comes first, always.

   (3) There is a lot of misinformation going around, 
     some of it - unfortunately - spread by authorities 
     that really should know better. The current figures
     are - to the best of my knowledge - 2-3% mortality 
     rate and an R0 (the rate at which the disease 
     spreads) of about 3. This makes this virus between  
     20 and 90 times more dangerous than the seasonal 
     flu, which has a .1% mortality rate and an R0 of 
     about 0.7-1.

   (4) If you decide to participate but not in person 
     then we should enable video conferencing to do some 
     of the interviews, these should focus on the people
     lower in the food chain at the companies we look at.

    Please let us know your preference in time, talk to
    Marco to ensure he is aware of what will happen so
    that we can communicate it to the customers and the
    targets alike.

   (5) The virus outbreak is still in its early days, the
     situation is *extremely* fluid, and you should make 
     an effort to stay informed and adapt your plans 
     immediately if you feel the situation warrants it.
     Please do communicate any such changes.

    Best regards, and please stay safe,

This was sent on Feb. 28th.

Our employees have always had the choice to work from home. Many just prefer to come to the office, no one has yet opted to work from home full time. The choice we were struggling with (until being shaken up in this thread), was whether to make it mandatory.

Are you kidding?

You should have implemented WoH weeks ago. Thinking whether or not doing it now is a disservice to all humanity and a testament of why we have reached this situation as a society.

The first case only just made its way to our city a couple of days ago. We have been rather distracted of course by getting signatures and cheques. For context, our schools and daycares are still open, as are city rec centers, gyms, and public transit. Only yesterday did the province recommend no gatherings over 250 people. Perhaps we should have been quicker, but here we are.

Only 150 cases in AU at the time Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got it. Only a thousand in the US when two NBA players got it. Only 150 in Canada when the Prime Minister's wife got it. Only 150 cases in Brazil when the press secretary got it.

These people certainly have more exposure to other humans than most people do. But not so much that they should be making up whole percentages of the infected population. I believe they are just well connected and wealthy and it's easier for them to get tested.

You can't have confirmed cases without testing. I've come to believe these confirmed case numbers may be having a negative effect on our understanding of the situation.

There are two sides of that coin.

One side: it's much more widespread than we realize.

Other side: it's much more mild and less fatal than we first thought.

A third side is a majority of the infections are still early stage, as was the case in Italy a couple weeks ago.

At the Friday press conference, they said that the LabCorp / LabQuest tests were testing about 2% positive. I don't have much of an insight to this, but isn't that weirdly low if it's truly everywhere? Especially if you factor in the limited testing and that testing will only be given to the more urgent high risk cases. 98% are just something else like the cold or the flu, or a false negative.

You’re assuming all deaths caused by Coronavirus are correctly identified as such. Sadly that’s almost guaranteed to not be the case.

The fatality number is irrelevant. We know it overwhelms health systems, and there's no ICU capacity to handle it.

That's all you need tk knoe.

> The first case only just made its way to our city a couple of days ago.

The first tested case. Given the delay between onset and diagnosis, + amounts of tests being actually done, + the couple days you mention, you may as well have over a thousand infected people in your city now, and you won't know until a) more tests start being made, or b) some of these people will start getting hospitalized in the next couple of days.

I am just super curious. Do your startup employees need physical infrastructure or deal with super confidential data that require them to be on site?

Do you not trust them the employees to work their part on their own?

They can work from home. But I'm learning from this thread, that being in a rather northern location where no one in the entire city has started working from home is not the norm. Again, it was only yesterday that the government gave any official guidance on travel or gatherings of people.

For so many reasons, selfish and not, you should target being ‘ahead of the curve’. Your government is not the oracle here. Later, you’ll be happy you acted earlier than others.

Move your employees to WFH now.

Ensure you all have the infrastructure at home to support being as effective as possible.

We have let everyone know they must start working from home, and we are purchasing proper audio equipment for our employees. This thread acted as a wake-up call. I fully admit we have had our head down. I have been dismissive in the middle of raising a seed round while running a company of 20 employees, with two very active boys at home. I have had no time to stay up to date on the world, and the general lack of action around me made me feel that it was something we had time to get to later. That is no excuse, only an explanation. I do sincerely hope that nothing negative comes out of our actions.

If your government gave no official guidance at all, then you would do nothing.

If other companies did nothing, then you would do nothing.

Interesting. Entrepreneurs are usually way more forward thinking.

Perhaps the difference is cultural. In my country we place a lot of confidence in the government and public health care system. We have been tested more in our province of <4 million than the entire US (x2). Additionally, we do not live in constant state of fear, we are comfortable, perhaps to our detriment in this situation, I fully admit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com