Conversation with a friend

Marymoore

So I was talking to my friend and she was severely stressed saying that her employer is planning to bring employees back to the office as soon as the government say it’s ok. Now my friend is fully vaccinated and she’s telling me it’s not safe. Is she being a bit over the top or is it in fact not safe? And how is it not safe if we are fully vaccinated? Asking for myself who is also due to go back to office ASAP

dennyk

Vaccinated people can still catch and spread Covid; you're just less likely to catch it and a lot less likely to get seriously ill from it. If everyone in the office is vaccinated and all of the appropriate precautions are taken (proper ventilation, social distancing, wearing masks, etc.), it should be reasonably safe, though.

Similar to what dennyk said - there's just no such thing as 100% safe.

Your friend isn't being over the top - a lot of people who've been out of work or working from home throughout the pandemic are going to feel very nervous going back. It's totally normal and totally okay to have a bit of anxiety over it. I think the more isolated people have been since COVID, the more nervous they are of being out in public.

That said, Ireland has a very high vaccination rate, and employers will be obliged to put safety measures in place, and life has to carry on. Hopefully your friend will get more comfortable with being back at work after a bit of time has passed.

Padre_Pio

We as a society need to live with COVID. It's not going away. Working from home was introduced to keep the death rate low and prevent transmissions in a vulnerable population.

With vaccinations, the population is no longer vulnerable, so most will have to return to work and learn to live with it. Hopefully, it'll just become another transmissible illness we need to deal with, like colds and flu.

Wabbit Ears

She is being dramatic but shes allowed to be!! Covid related anxiety is real and just because youre not concerned doesn't mean its ok to dismiss the feelings of others.

Your friend should be looking for specific reasons why she needs to be in the office at all, especially if she has been working from home without issues. People all over are simply saying NO and leaving jobs that are requesting them return for no sound reason whatsoever.

MIRMIR82

I work in an office and i had 7 weeks off last year at the beginning of all this. There are 70 full time workers where i work and we haven't had one case of covid. As the others here have said, she has anxiety about it because she's been sheltered and safe at home for so long. She will be fine after a few days back at it.

AustinLostin

There's a level of risk involved, but with enough vaccinated, it should be an acceptable risk. Obviously it can be stressful after a year or two working from home, especially if you are immunocompromised or care for someone who is.

I found hardest part was work put in guidelines and some people did not attempt to follow them.

Working from home was far more productive for me personally, and was obvious from my output so it was easy enough to negotiate hybrid model.

Ohmeha

Do you have any medical conditions or live with anyone who has medical conditions/elderly? It would be perfectly acceptable in those instances to be very nervous and having objections about returning to the office with the unknown of this autumn/winter season coming up and that companies in this country so far are not mandating their staff to be vaccinated

Anyone who has been WFH without issue since the pandemic started and is now being requested to return to the office should be requesting their employer's COVID policy and H&S measures and an explanation as to why they are requested to return to the office when there has been no official change yet to the government's public health measures on WFH

OMM 0000

Most people are very bad at understanding risk.

Risk is not black and white. Everything has risk.

People die every year from slipping while taking a shower.

People die in their cars driving to work.

And so on.

If your friend is relatively healthy her risk of death is virtually zero.

That's not to say she's being hysterical or unreasonable. It is normal to feel scared about something like this. It's been a weird 18 months and feeling fearful is a normal response.

But if everyone in her office is vaccinated, wears masks and keeps a sensible distance from each other, I don't think she needs to worry.

Turkish1

Not a lot of detail but IMO your friend is being over the top. Your post states that the 'employer is planning to bring employees back to the office as soon as the government say it’s ok'. So the employer is being considerate of staff and giving them an indication that once the government has deemed it safe to return to the office that they will - this gives employees time to sort out their own arrangements (childcare, travel, school drop-off's etc..). It also seems to suggest that the employer is consciously going through the process of understanding what the government consider ok (social distancing, ventilation, vaccination, mask wearing etc..) and taking these on board - so I am struggling to understand what your friend is considering unsafe?

Is there more to the story? Has the employer a history of not providing a safe environment for their staff? Will they be in a cramped office where they will be on top of each other? Have they raised their concerns with their manager/employer? There is no point people making snap judgements without speaking to their employer to raise their concerns and see what the response is in order to mitigate the perceived risks.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117791453#Comment_117791453

Perhaps a slight tangent but given how there is a general consensus that we will need to learn to live with COVID and it is not going away in the short term 1-3 years (and potentially ever) how long do people propose wearing masks in work?

i.e. do people see mask wearing and social distancing as 'the norm' for the next 1-3 years even with everyone that wants a vaccination having availed of one (not yet but it won't be long until this is the position)?

ted1

what qualification does your friend have that allows here to make such a statement?