A new occasional series.
Wall Street Journal -- After years of squeezing ever more workers into tighter office spaces, companies are realizing how efficiently the modern workspace can spread diseases like the coronavirus. Cubicles and private offices have made way for open floors, where a sneeze or cough can circulate uninterrupted. Companies have removed physical barriers between employees, encouraging them to socialize as much as possible.
Also in WSJ -- A strategy meeting for senior managers at Boston-area biotech Biogen Inc. late last month has emerged as a hotbed for novel coronavirus infections, resulting in more than two dozen around the country so far, according to public-health and company officials. The spread of coronavirus infections from the meeting highlights the potential dangers in going ahead with the gatherings and conferences that are a staple of conducting business but which also threaten to amplify epidemics. “There’s a lot of handshaking, there’s a lot of being in close quarters, and that puts you at risk,” said Manish Trivedi, the director of the division of infectious diseases at AtlantiCare in New Jersey. “You eat something. You rub your eyes. You touch your face.” Senior Biogen managers who attended the strategy meeting at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel have since traveled to gatherings of investors and doctors, as well as returned to their homes in communities that are also now confronting infection risks.
To be continued ...
UPDATE 17 APRIL: The New York Times has more details on the Biogen superspreader fiasco -- which describes what is almost a parody of upper middle class existence.
Wall Street Journal -- After years of squeezing ever more workers into tighter office spaces, companies are realizing how efficiently the modern workspace can spread diseases like the coronavirus. Cubicles and private offices have made way for open floors, where a sneeze or cough can circulate uninterrupted. Companies have removed physical barriers between employees, encouraging them to socialize as much as possible.
Also in WSJ -- A strategy meeting for senior managers at Boston-area biotech Biogen Inc. late last month has emerged as a hotbed for novel coronavirus infections, resulting in more than two dozen around the country so far, according to public-health and company officials. The spread of coronavirus infections from the meeting highlights the potential dangers in going ahead with the gatherings and conferences that are a staple of conducting business but which also threaten to amplify epidemics. “There’s a lot of handshaking, there’s a lot of being in close quarters, and that puts you at risk,” said Manish Trivedi, the director of the division of infectious diseases at AtlantiCare in New Jersey. “You eat something. You rub your eyes. You touch your face.” Senior Biogen managers who attended the strategy meeting at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel have since traveled to gatherings of investors and doctors, as well as returned to their homes in communities that are also now confronting infection risks.
To be continued ...
UPDATE 17 APRIL: The New York Times has more details on the Biogen superspreader fiasco -- which describes what is almost a parody of upper middle class existence.
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