Gwenoakes wrote:Thanks for that explanation, LL although to think if we do the right thing to prevent one virus/bacteria and effectively encourage another is not too good, unless I have misunderstood what you wrote.
I wouldn't be too worried about it - after all, you don't instantly throw your towels into the washing machine after a single use normally so more a case of being sensible. Hence, if using the flannel is just a make shift wipe your hands in case you had picked up the virus thing and you still washed your hands thoroughly when you have opportunity, then I suppose it is better than nothing.
Gwenoakes wrote:Will you get paid if your either laid off or work from home, LL?
My place of employment before coronavirus, already had work from home opportunities (usually management for example, preparing for appraisals without constant disruptions) but although I could get on with some online computing (I have a big task to move from a paper based system to electronic as part of the climate change sustainability challenge - I have gradually been moving a lot of documents out of my drives such as my training course material as well as health and safety to an online system to make it more accessible to others rather than print them out), my job as a whole is mainly to do with bench work and working with students and researchers. The biggest problem with the online idea is that my home broadband might not be up to the task compared to the more industrial system we have at work. For example, uploading documents at work can take say 2-3 seconds but at home might be up to 5 minutes + per document (even slower if more people are likely to be using broadband whether because of work at home or entertainment) and I have well over 5000 documents to upload. Each document needs to be checked against the database as well as update information from known online sources (some of the original documents are due for review which is why I decided to do the upload at the same time) hence why it is taking me so long and something I would normally do inbetween my other tasks.
I imagine that salaries will continue in the short term if the closure is initiated by the employer rather than employees deciding to not come in. And with the government telling people to stay at home for 7 days if they showed symptoms of fever and uncontrolled coughing, then this is covered by statutory sick pay. However, until the government tells employers what to do, what happens if there is a full blown quarantine is still unknown. I'm probably in a better position working in education than say someone working in industry.