Apple postpones return to work plan until at least October
Apple has postponed plans to bring employees back to the office, according to a report on Monday, with the company now expected to hold off on in-person work until at least October due to a COVID-19 surge.
Apple previously scheduled a shift toward normal corporate operations in September as California and other regions seemed capable of better handling the pandemic. A recent uptick in delta variant cases in and around Cupertino, as well as around the world, has given the tech giant pause, according to Bloomberg.
Citing people familiar with the company's plans, the report claims Apple has delayed its plans by at least a month. The iPhone maker will inform employees at least a month before in-office work is mandated.
According to The Mercury News, Cupertino in Santa Clara, where Apple Park is located, is in a Tier 2 zone, where daily new cases hover between 6 to 9.9 per 100,000 residents. Bordering Alameda county is a Tier 1 equivalent with more than 10 cases per 100,000 residents, the report said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook in June informed staff that the company would embrace a hybrid work schedule in September. Employees will be expected to return to the office for at least three days a week and, with a few exceptions, can remote in from home twice a week. Employees can also elect to work from home for up to two weeks a year, pending approval from management.
Days after Cook announced the change internally, participants of a remote work advocacy Slack channel penned a letter asking Apple for more flexibility. Remote work comes with a number of benefits, the workers claim, including greater diversity and inclusion in retention and hiring, tearing down previously existing communication barriers, better work life balance, better integration of existing remote / location-flexible workers, and reduced spread of pathogens.
Apple rebuffed the request.
Last week, a handful of workers threatened to quit should the return to work policy be implemented. A second letter was sent to executives on Monday.
Apple's corporate philosophy holds employee commingling as a vital ingredient to innovation. Late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was such a proponent that he helped design Apple Park's main building -- effectively a large ring -- to facilitate serendipitous encounters.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple previously scheduled a shift toward normal corporate operations in September as California and other regions seemed capable of better handling the pandemic. A recent uptick in delta variant cases in and around Cupertino, as well as around the world, has given the tech giant pause, according to Bloomberg.
Citing people familiar with the company's plans, the report claims Apple has delayed its plans by at least a month. The iPhone maker will inform employees at least a month before in-office work is mandated.
According to The Mercury News, Cupertino in Santa Clara, where Apple Park is located, is in a Tier 2 zone, where daily new cases hover between 6 to 9.9 per 100,000 residents. Bordering Alameda county is a Tier 1 equivalent with more than 10 cases per 100,000 residents, the report said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook in June informed staff that the company would embrace a hybrid work schedule in September. Employees will be expected to return to the office for at least three days a week and, with a few exceptions, can remote in from home twice a week. Employees can also elect to work from home for up to two weeks a year, pending approval from management.
Days after Cook announced the change internally, participants of a remote work advocacy Slack channel penned a letter asking Apple for more flexibility. Remote work comes with a number of benefits, the workers claim, including greater diversity and inclusion in retention and hiring, tearing down previously existing communication barriers, better work life balance, better integration of existing remote / location-flexible workers, and reduced spread of pathogens.
Apple rebuffed the request.
Last week, a handful of workers threatened to quit should the return to work policy be implemented. A second letter was sent to executives on Monday.
Apple's corporate philosophy holds employee commingling as a vital ingredient to innovation. Late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was such a proponent that he helped design Apple Park's main building -- effectively a large ring -- to facilitate serendipitous encounters.
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast -- and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.
Read on AppleInsider
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/20/2040870/-We-have-to-eliminate-COVID-19-not-learn-to-live-with-it-because-we-can-t-live-with-it
(** Assuming we keep using PCR w/ higher cycle counts.)
“This is not a decline [in life expectancy] that happened in other high-income countries, so something went terribly wrong in the U.S. where the number of Americans who died was vastly in excess of what it needed to be,” said Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University and one of the authors of the BMJ study.
Also, that (masks after vax) is FAR from the only thing that doesn't make sense. If you know anything about the history of disease control, respiratory viruses, or science, there have only been a few things that HAVE made any sense.