Thread by @cha_myoung

1/ With the omicron wave putting untold pressure on staffing across a wide variety of industries, it is not inconceivable for these staffing shortages to become more “endemic” with behaviors that have likely changed forever. 🧵

2/ An estimated 5 million people are isolating at home due to omicron, which could “deal a significant hit to the economy over the next month or two.”

wsj.com/articles/omicr…

3/ In historical flu seasons, the current omicron-driven work absentee rate would be ~2x the average peak of workplace absence due to all illnesses in the US (largely flu).

4/ The @IHME_UW model predicts that we will see 140 M new infections this quarter in the US — almost half the country (!)

usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

5/ Our tolerance for working while sick has clearly been suppressed due to the pandemic compared to this survey from 2018. I’ll bet the threshold for working while sick has come down significantly with COVID and that this will persist long beyond omicron.

journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

6/ From a survey this fall: “65% of…workers who reported being sick in the last month said they went to work anyway. That’s lower than the 85% who showed up to work sick before the pandemic, but much higher than it should be"

latimes.com/world-nation/s…

7/ Will these kinds of disruptions become commonplace, even if COVID evolves into a “milder” form after omicron?

nytimes.com/2022/01/06/nyr…

8/ There is clear pressure on healthcare right now with upwards of 10% capacity cuts due to staffing shortages.

wsj.com/articles/hospi…

9/ Our vaccines are great at preventing hospitalization and death but not sickness. The case rate for vaccinated people in SF is higher than it has ever been, even compared to unvaccinated people during delta. What will the sick leave rate look like during the next surge?

10/ With billions of people having become watchful of flu-like symptoms, it will be hard for many to ignore symptoms and “power through them” for a while. Will some of these new behaviors stick, similar to mask-wearing in Asia post-SARS?

11/ Interesting to see Gavin Newsom announce plans to supplement paid COVID-19 sick leave, which will protect frontline workers from having to make a choice between going to work sick or losing jobs but could exacerbate the labor shortage.

ktla.com/news/californi…

12/ Given the vaccine effectiveness of boosters versus symptomatic disease, I wonder if some employers will urge or require booster shots from an “enlightened self-interest” standpoint to prevent mass absences ahead of the next surge.

13/ Of course, the way to prevent mass sick-out events is to prevent wide-scale transmission through a broader set of mitigations, but that all goes out the window if we are going to continue to “let it rip” after omicron.

14/ cnbc.com/2022/01/10/fac…