Were you an Essential during the Covids?

[Bogie]

You know, I got to wondering, somewhere around 0330...
 
Was mortality higher among the Essential group, or among the Non-Essential group?
 

[Brad Johnson]

Yes, I was. Ain't ded yet.

Brad

[K Frame]

Yes, I was, and yes, I continue to be. I work on national security-based programs. Literally cannot work from home, so I've been in an office every day of the pandemic, except for back in April and May of 2020 when I was in between jobs.

[Lennyjoe]

Essential yes, in the office all the time, no. 

I go to the office when I need to do work in a classified setting and when meetings dictate face to face necessity. 

I’m still in a 90% work from home posture and don’t see that changing in the near future.

I’ve put on a couple of “work from home” pounds but only like 4 or 5…

[Pb]

Well, I sure don't think I am essential, but I was in the office.  I was about the only one that was, at least during the first summer.  Boy, it was lonely.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I was out anyway for the first bit of covid, but yeah, we fall under agriculture since Katie's farm is considered part of the business.

I have yet to get even a sniffle.

[K Frame]

Well, I sure don't think I am essential, but I was in the office.  I was about the only one that was, at least during the first summer.  Boy, it was lonely.

 

During the height of the plague we had social distancing protocols in effect in our SCIF. Two 6 hour shifts, 6 a.m. to noon, noon to 6 p.m.

The two hours you weren't in the SCIF you had to work in the unclassified areas of the building to get your full 8 hours in.

I'd go in at 10 a.m. and work in our unclass teaming areas, a space where probably 400 people could sit and work.

Most days there would be 2, maybe 3 of us in there.

The whole building had, in the before times, a daily capacity of around 4,000 people. During full plague, fewer than 400 people would be there in any given day.

Even now, since we've "returned to work" the building is still at maybe 20% capacity, and they've even started emptying out parts of it as we get ready to end the lease in 2025.

[lee n. field]

Were you an Essential during the Covids?

I guess.   Worked right through it, like everyone else I know.

You know, I got to wondering, somewhere around 0330...
 
Was mortality higher among the Essential group, or among the Non-Essential group?

no se

[HankB]

Even though I'm retired, Uncle Sam seemed to consider me essential . . . particularly as April 15 approached. 

[Nick1911]

In so much as "essential employee" is defined as "you need to physically go to work everyday", no, I'm not.  The software work I do can be done remotely.  Heck, even my gig teaching trades at the community college went remote.

[MillCreek]

I was considered essential and was supposed to be out showing the flag in the hospital and clinics.

[RocketMan]

My employer considered me an essential worker during the Covids.  I had to show up every day to the work site.  And she did not let me slack off at all with the housework and yard work.

[zxcvbob]

My employer considered it "essential" that I have access to my office and the labs, but they didn't want me going on-site more than once a week.  (I guess I was supposed to schedule when an emergency would occur  )  I did most of my work from home, and could have done almost all of it.  When my wife found out I could go to the office once a week, she insisted that I do so to get me out of the house. 

[Northwoods]

Yes, I was. Ain't ded yet.

Brad

Don’t be such a baby and get on the cart!

[charby]

Agriculture was deemed essential, I didn't die when I got covid, but a couple times during the active symptoms I wish I did. Honestly I just started really feeling close to 100% a couple weeks ago, so 5 months after testing positive.

[K Frame]

My nephew is 22 or so. He had it last year, and his sense of smell is still screwed up.

[RoadKingLarry]

My position was "essential" but I was on short term disability when it started and for almost half of 2020. When I went back to work after the first shoulder surgery in late Spring driving in to Tulsa was Surreal, like something out of some post-apocalyptic movie.
When I went back after the 3rd surgery the lockdown was mostly over around here and it was obvious to me the non-essential people can't *expletive deleted*ing drive.

Out of all my "essential" co-workers I don't remember anyone even having the covids let alone dieing from it.

[HeroHog]

I haven't been "essential", in ANY sense of the word, for over a decade and a half now! 

[K Frame]

"When I went back to work after the first shoulder surgery in late Spring driving in to Tulsa was Surreal"

Oh holy crap tell me about it!

When *expletive deleted*it started to get real in March 2020 and things started to shut down left and right I decided to take Seren to Castle Key's and leave her there because I didn't think I was going to have day care for her. I really thought they were going to shut down because their client base was evaporating.

Two weeks or so later, Friday 10 April, IIRC, was my last day on the FBI contract. I knew the week before that I was losing my job, so I talked with Castle Key and made the decision to head south to his place to be with Seren and get the hell away from DC metro. I packed the car that morning, headed to the office to debrief and tell everyone to go *expletive deleted*ck themselves, and headed south around 1 pm.

The first 50 or so miles of the trip to their place is on interstate 95 heading south, and on a Friday it's usually bumper to bumper, only this time I was hammering along at probably 80 MPH and the occasional car was passing me here and there. There were stretches where there was at least a mile or more between me and the nearest car. It was absolutely eerie.

[dogmush]

I was. Got my special travel papers around here somewhere.

I WISH the DOD would let me work from home.

[K Frame]

I was. Got my special travel papers around here somewhere.

I WISH the DOD would let me work from home.

I cleaned out my messenger/computer bag a few months ago and finally threw out my special travel papers. Now I sort of wish I had saved them.

[Regolith]

Despite being able to do 99% of my job from home, my boss decided I was an essential employee because I'm apparently the only one she could get to show up and unlock/lock the doors at the same time consistently every single day...

Never got the COVID, thankfully. I'm separated from most of the other workers though; I share a classroom sized office with one other person and our desks are 12 feet apart. Makes social distancing easy.

[Unisaw]

As a financial services provider, yes. But, I had the whole team work from home and we will continue to do so on a permanent basis.

[Andiron]

We had work to do,  so we did it.  My company ignored the entirety of that stupid *expletive deleted*it.  No Covid casualties, and only 2 cases out of 17 guys over the past couple years.  No,  we didn't put stupid *expletive deleted*ing stickers on the ground to indicate where folks could safely stand or require masks.

[De Selby]

You know, I got to wondering, somewhere around 0330...
 
Was mortality higher among the Essential group, or among the Non-Essential group?

This question has been scientifically studied. The answer is yes, covid mortality was much higher among essential workers.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.14.22270958v1.full.pdf

From March 2020 through November 2021, essential work was associated with higher COVID-19 and excess mortality compared with non-essential work, with the highest per-capita COVID-19 mortality in agriculture (131.8 per 100,000), transportation/logistics (107.1), manufacturing (103.3), and facilities (101.1). Essential workers continued to face higher COVID-19 and excess mortality during the period of widely available vaccines (March through November 2021). Between July and November 2021, emergency workers experienced higher per-capita COVID-19 mortality (113.7) than workers from any other sector. Essential workers faced the highest COVID-19 mortality in counties with low vaccination rates, a difference that was more pronounced
during the period of the Delta surge in Summer 2021.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5479

COVID-19 mortality was five times higher for low vs. high-SEP adults (72.2 vs. 14.6 deaths per 100,000, RR = 4.94, 95% CI 4.82–5.05). The joint detriments of low SEP, Hispanic ethnicity, and male gender resulted in a COVID-19 death rate which was over 27 times higher (178.0 vs. 6.5 deaths/100,000, RR = 27.4, 95% CI 25.9–28.9) for low-SEP Hispanic men vs. high-SEP white women. In regression modeling, percent of the labor force in never remote jobs explained 72% of the variance in COVID-19 death rates.