COVID-19: Chapter 9 - OMGicron

January 4th

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Coworker came in on Thursday and said to me “hey coasterbrad, I’m not gonna get too close to you. I think I have omicron. I don’t have any PTO left though so I had to come in. I’m vaccinated so I’ll be good.” Then proceeds to take his mask off in our small breakroom. I made sure mine was tightly sealed, and I removed myself from the area. Was probably 4 feet away from him for 3 minutes.

The shift supervisor made him leave immediately thankfully. Just found out today he tested positive. Why the fuck would you come in to work dude. I’m pretty pissed. Not too worried about my exposure since it was very brief, I was masked, and we’re both vaccinated/boosted. But damnit it baffles me how inconsiderate it is to show up when you actually think you might have covid. And this is a nice guy, not a trumpy asshole. Ugh.

/end rant

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In early October, I had some cold symptoms that lasted 3-4 days. Honestly, my cousin’s description of his recent bout of COVID was essentially what I felt at that time. By the time I got to a test, it was negative but also the symptoms were mostly gone.

Sure, it’s possible that I had COVID right there but if someone asks me if I have had it yet, I tell them that I haven’t because I’m not sure.

He was out of PTO.

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What are you including in bolded? Loss of smell? Anything else?

we don’t have sick days, just PTO. Minneapolis has some ordinance called sick and safe time that makes employers give you up to 2 weeks of sick time per year. I think it also depends on how much PTO you have or something, i’ve never really understood it

+1. They added +5 sick days on to whatever PTO we had a couple years ago.

The two pharma/biotech I’ve worked at have both had unlimited sick time, with the expectation that you only take sick time when you’re truly sick. Most people I worked with over the years came in sick anyway, at least in the pre-Covid world. I averaged probably 2 or 3 sick days per year over 25+ years.

It was starting to change a little even before Covid, after working from home became more efficient. People would just work from home when sick.

plus two negative antigen tests tho

no loss of smell or taste. no body aches. no fatigue or shortness of breath. no coughing fits. it was a mild sore throat that went away and turned into the worst congestion and a fever for a day at the end. following two days i thought i might lose my voice, it sounded that different.

You’re not even seeing cases from the holiday get togethers yet. NYE still on deck.

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I get all of bolded with a severe cold. Shortness of breath is mild (i.e., I’d feel it with exertion but not just sitting). Fatigue, body ache, and coughing fits are super standard for me.

I think you can look at it slightly differently. Not all interactions are equal value and so people rationally take on more risk for higher value interactions. And after almost two years of missing gatherings a lot of people place high value on these holidays. That’s combined with a lot of people recognizing that their risk is significantly lower this year because of vaccines / rapid tests.

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Did you get tested? There is more overlap in symptoms between delta and omicron with common colds than with earlier strains.

I used to have PTO in one bucket that could accumulate if unused in a year, and sick time that was use it or lose it in a year. We just switched to flexible time off for everything, where you can take “as much as you want” but also the company owes you nothing. Obviously they hope you take less, but I plan to be taking plenty.

Sorry, didn’t see this. Two negative antigen tests means it’s very likely just a cold.

i get seperate pto, vacation, and sick leave.

not that it matters because i can’t take any time off right now unless it’s medical

We have 20 days PTO and 20 days sick/carers leave every year and they both accumulate. If sick/carers leave runs out then your manager and HR can still approve more days. Colleague had a wife with cancer and ended up taking almost 6 months of leave in a 1 year period without anyone complaining. Almost nobody takes advantage of it either. Would be impossible for me to go back to a company where people come in with Covid because staying home costs them PTO.

I get 4 personal holidays and then something called FTO “flexible time off”. It’s vacation and sick days, but if you have to burn 10 days in a row for sickness, any time afterwards is short term disability which you don’t accrue for or lose FTO for. Not sure when it turns into long term disability.

40k and 85k the last two days. Going to need some 400k+ days probably by the end of the year to hit a new 7dma high. Definitely possible. The next few days of reporting should be wild.

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