I thought it would be interesting to look at the state of public health literature on pandemic management prior to the insanity of the past year.
The UK's Department of Health published guidance in 2011 for mitigating an influenza pandemic - full document in the link above. This guidance covers any influenza pandemic up to the highest severity, with a symptomatic fatality rate of 2.5%:
>For deaths, the analysis of previous influenza pandemics suggests that we should plan for a situation in which up to 2.5% of those with symptoms would die as a result of influenza, assuming no effective treatment was available.
COVID19 by comparison has a 0.5%-1% infection fatality rate overall, which we will increase here by around 1/3 if we only consider fatality rate in the symptomatic group (around 30% of infections have no symptoms).
So in other words, COVID19 is still significantly less severe than the worst case scenario pandemic discussed in this paper. The document also states that the guidance can be adapted to other respiratory pathogens such as SARS:
>A pandemic is most likely to be caused by a new subtype of the Influenza A virus but the plans could be adapted and deployed for scenarios such as an outbreak of another infectious disease, eg Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in health care settings, with an altogether different pattern of infectivity.
Now let's look at some of the guidance on mitigation/non-pharmaceutical interventions set out in this paper:
>Facemasks and respirators
>
>Although there is a perception that the wearing of facemasks by the public in the community and household setting may be beneficial, there is in fact very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use in this setting. Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour in order for them to achieve the intended benefit. Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods reduces over time.
>Border Closures
>
>There are no plans to attempt to close borders in the event of an influenza pandemic.
I work in pharmacy and Iβm a technician trainee, which basically means I can do everything that a tech can do. I was waiting on the liscence for a while and finally got it last week, only to find out from my co worker that our store management is prioritizing a clerk who has been there for less time and doesnβt have a liscence so all she can do is answer phones and sign meds out.
Now I really like this girl, and I donβt wonβt her hours cut but itβs really not hard to spread the hours out among everyone, but this girl is the front end managers daughter. So even though I have seniority over her by months, and Iβm liscence while sheβs still waiting on hers Iβm being pushed into my old department that I donβt want to work in anymore, due to what seems like favoritism from the store manager of the front end managers daughter.
Is this something I can report to the union? Or is this something sheβs allowed to do. Weβre really backed up some we really need someone like me back here who can actually get stuff done so I donβt understand the logic in any of this.
Tldr: it is a very long post because I wanted to give as much background as possible. I am too young and don't have much experience in the world of work to know how to deal with the situations described below. The short version is that management at my cleaning work is incompetent and this makes my colleagues miserable. Many are leaving. I want to address my concerns to an executive director but maybe it should instead be addressed to HR. The exec director seems like a man who appreciates the "small" workers whereas I have the feeling HR will just ignore the issue. Could you give me any advice?
So a bit of background. I (20ish F) am a university student and work part time on a zero hour contract as a cleaner for my Uni. My colleagues are a mix of employees on a contract and temp workers like me.
We have been in a dire shortage of staff and been given double and triple the amount of work which with Omicron has been becoming exponentially worse. Our supervisor, instead of sticking up for us in front of management, comes along and cleans even though she's not allowed to. While I do respect her hard work, I, as well as all my colleagues, are incredibly disappointed in her ability to manage her role as a supervisor. Instead of flagging the issues that the work is becoming unmanageable due staff shortages, she covers them by giving us an increasing amount of demands and joining in with the work so long she keeps the managers happy. I.e. she has no backbone and does whatever management says.
Then there is, then, the issue of the manager at the building I am working at, who, even though everyone is working as hard as they can, never says one good word to staff and complains daily to the supervisor about tiny things that no other building manager cares for, and to be honest, this is the reason no other supervisor (or cleaner for that matter) wants to work at that building. This man also had no shame in contacting one of the covering supervisors on her personal phone, which she has given in case of an EMERGENCY, to complain about standards not being met this week (mind you, a lot of people are off with Omicron or on holiday still so standards are bound to fall when there is no back up staff)
Then our departments managers (different to the building manager) have been treating my colleagues with utter disrespect. Guilt tripping them for taking holiday, moving supervisors between buildings as a punishment for them speaking up about struggling with the am
... keep reading on reddit β‘Would this early approach actually lessen the existence of narcissists?
Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Lamar Smith [R-TX21]
This bill was referred to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.
Rep. Lamar Smith [R-TX21] is the chairman of the committee.
Is anyone here doing the MSc in Range Management in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management? I'm thinking of applying to it after I finish my undergrad but would like to hear from people who's done it or knows about it - I'd really appreciate any insights :)
I am Dr. Gabe Kaptchuk, a Research Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Center for Reliable Information Systems οΌ Cyber Security Affiliate at Boston University. I earned my PhD in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University in 2020. I have worked in industry, at Intel Labs, and in the policy sphere, working in the United States Senate in the personal office of Sen. Ron Wyden. Now, I'm focusing on privacy research to spread provably secure systems beyond the laboratory setting. As part of Cyber Security Awareness Month, ask me anything about:
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What is data privacy?
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On an individual level, what can I do to protect my data?
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On a national level, what can the government and/or companies do to protect private data?
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On a systemic level, what changes are needed to reclaim our data privacy?
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What are the biggest cybersecurity threats right now?
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How should we think about balancing privacy and accountability?
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What is the relationship between cryptography, security, and privacy?
Proof: https://i.redd.it/us7nr4ykk4s71.jpg
Thank you everyone for asking questions β this has been lots of fun! Unfortunately, I am not able to respond to every question, but I will plan to revisit the conversation later on! In the meantime, for more information about cybersecurity, cryptography and more, please follow me on Twitter @gkaptchuk.
I recently heard that there will be a significant restructuring of management at my store. All department supervisor positions will be eliminated and fewer area supervisors positions will replace them. This is to remove department supervisors that they believe are unfit for the position and ask them to step down to an associate level as well ass increase the amount asmβs are involved in departments. Apparently asmβs were criticized by regional management for being in their offices too much and having department heads doing work that they were supposed to be doing. The restructuring is still in development but should be fully implemented by the first of next year. Is this happening to your store?Does anyone have any other information about this or further insight on how this will effect the store?
