What is this obsessive need to bring everyone back into the same poorly ventilated rooms? What business goal is served here other than literally making them look busy? Do you want to wear a mask for 7 to 12 hours a day on the job when you could be at home?
But also for those who feel that doing so is better than working from home, more power to you. Just don't make me join your club. It's just not my thing.
That said, I do hope that remote working will continue to be an option for those who want it as there are advantages besides virus exposure.
I can be cautious and likely avoid significant exposure for another year or two at least, but not if my employer disallows it.
For one, there might be vaccines that work more broadly and give immunocompromised individuals better protection in the future, or cures/remedies that help your body fight the virus better when you do fall ill.
For another, right now hospitals are starting to overflow here and if I decide today to start going out and about as if nothing is amiss again, me or a loved one might end up there at a time where they're actually full. That is not cool for the covid patient, the medical personnel that usually already do overtime during normal times, or the people whose treatments are delayed again because it's full of covid patients again. We do still have a period to work through, either by (booster or initial) vaccinations or by forced inoculation for anti-vaxxers (aka having covid).
It's not about being too short-sighted to see that it's very likely we'll all be exposed eventually.
The 2020s: when residents of the wealthy West discovered that “elective” procedure doesn’t only mean cosmetic or gender-affirming surgery, but anything that isn’t literally preventing you from dying right now, or a baby coming out.
The evidence indicates that another coronavirus HCoV-OC43 probably caused the 1889-90 pandemic and killed millions of people worldwide. The same virus is still endemic. It doesn't kill many people today because most of us get infected as youths and then retain some level of immunity which protects us later in life.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/
There's more to life than avoiding disease. I'm not going to put my life on hold and hide.
As for vaccines, we obviously can't have any data on long term effectiveness. But short term effectiveness against severe symptoms is pretty good, and periodic boosters are available to those who want them.
To that end, opening up all the corporate offices for those that feel the need to be in the office once again whilst 100% allowing work from home seems the best of both worlds. We have vaccines. But we also have a rapidly evolving virus and a perfect storm right now for it to evolve further. I'm betting on the virus to win this one in the short-term. But I'm also betting in the long term that it's doomed, fortunately.
Of course, when I stated I'm less than happy about that, they claimed it's very safe. Yet all workers are traveling by bus and masks are not mandatory.
Aside: genuine bona fide former bench scientist who used to work in a hot lab here. I stopped working in hot labs because the safety practices of my coworkers terrified me. Many of them are dead of cancer now, decades later. While there's no strong evidence for it, I cannot entirely dismiss the lab Leak theory here based on my prior experience working with fellow scientists and their cavalier attitudes towards safety. Had I stayed I think I would have lost my mind.
During the peak of the pandemic I was still going to my office at Oxford University. However, this other institution I'm potentially joining has much more relaxed safety measures.
I think having a low-density office is a must even if there is no pandemics. I want to be productive, and I don't want to be surrounded by tens of coughing people during the flu season. It's just commonsense.
Except that's not what's likely to happen. Even if 100% WFH is the official policy, people will be leaned on to come into the office. And as the number of people working remotely shrinks, that will only get worse, because it's very hard to be an outlier when everyone else is communicating real-time face to face.
I've seen all-remote, all-local, and mixed environments. I just don't have faith that mixed environments work well, but every situation is different.
"All of that is pointless. You're inevitably going to be exposed to ionizing radiation many times throughout your life regardless of what your employer does. Whether you're exposed in the office or somewhere else hardly matters."
Viral loading matters a great deal.
> Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments make the risk minimal.
For some definition of 'minimal', for most people, this is thankfully very true.