And that will be postponed till later in the spring.. I can't see things improving during the winter.
Alpha of course was the problem (being the first COVID19 variant that was "better" than the original). But only Delta was actually "better" than Alpha. Everyone has completely forgotten about Beta (aka: South Africa variant), despite it being hugely in the news a few months ago.
Lambda isn't spreading very much. There's a "Delta-Plus" variant going around, but it seems like "Delta-Plus" is no "better" than the original Delta.
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We drew the short straw on this one. Back in the 1918 pandemic, the flu evolved into a less-dangerous form. In this COVID19 situation, we got unlucky twice, and the virus evolved twice (first to Alpha, then again to Delta).
There's no reason to assume that the virus will continue to "get better", so to speak. Aside from the fact that it did so twice in the past year... the next step it takes forward could be backwards. Evolution cuts both ways, its not always a straight path towards improvement.
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EDIT: Looking at the list: Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, and Kappa are all "variants of concern" but no one gives a care. Only Delta is giving us issues right now, and only Alpha gave us a major issue before Delta.
Wasn't the second wave of the 1918 pandemic the most deadly?[1] To be sure, the current flu variants are much less dangerous than anything from that time though.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Deadly_second_wave...
I admit that I forgot about the 2nd wave in 1919. But my understanding is that in 1920 or so, the virus mutated again into a less-virulent form, allowing the pandemic to end.
Most 'Greek letter' conversations I've had just ignore this and say "Alpha" when they mean the original.
For what it's worth, there is some evidence that Delta is less deadly than the original strain, although by how much is difficult to say, especially with vaccination as a confounding measure.
Ex: Why are we calling a variant "Delta-plus" ?? Shouldn't it just take the next Greek letter?
One is probably dropping off soon (technicalities about where I live, etc., create uncertainty about the duration of that).
One is very expensive, but I love that gym, but it's less conducive to the workouts I want to do if I'm wearing a mask.
The cheaper one is closest to my house and the easiest for me to program with a mask.
I'm trying to figure out whether to pay the cancellation fees or hope for better times soon. It seems likely that I'll pay the break-up fees and keep the one gym membership because.. I agree with your prognosis. But I don't want to agree with that prognosis.
How many tech companies will just let their offices go when the lease is up? Or begin the process of subletting?
Many tech companies have started a full remote hiring swing, and they won't let these employees go when things return to "normal". It wouldn't make sense to lay them off if they're productive talent.
I could see small WeWork-style hubs working for companies that want to support small clusters of remote workers, but not full offices.
This will probably put a lot of downwards pressure on our $300-500k compensation packages as we begin to hire from middle and southern US states, where wages never reached west coast levels.
Any of them which have learned how to produce as much value working remotely as they did working in an office, less the cost of renting the office.
Ha, who am I kidding? It won't be a rational choice.
The companies that will continue demanding in-office work will be those driven by a company culture that _distrusts their employees_. I expect that if sufficiently many companies opt to remain fully WFH and abandon offices altogether that those which demand office presence will be viewed suspiciously by prospective employees.
As suspiciously as one should view a potential employer who demands to install rootkit spyware on your personal computer when conducting an interview.
To many companies, real estate is money parking or even speculation.