[dandersh]

Coworkers of a family friend and my uncle died from it, even though their jobs could be done remotely (my uncle's a sysadmin ffs)

Our oldest daughter's friend didn't get it despite it putting her 3 siblings and 2 parents on their ass for over a month.

My wife and I suspect it played a role in her father's death. This occurred soon after nursing home shutdowns in the state and he had been dead of "heart failure" far longer than they had said in the initial phone call. They were fairly evasive when asked follow up questions about what had occurred and my wife and mother in law had gotten influenza (and hospitalized from it in my mil's case) from the same nursing home. He was in there recovering from a physical injury but had been dealing with health issues for a few months already, so who knows. The important thing was that my wife had her first viewing of her dead father completely alone, followed up by a "funeral" of immediate family members. Oh yea, and this all happened soon after his birthday that she wasn't able to celebrate with him due to the lockdown.

I feel like focusing on total deaths, death rate, etc. sometimes misses the point and allows those who rebel against any measures taken a rhetorical out. I don't like being sick, I don't like my family being sick. We've had our entire family wiped out from things like the flu and gastroenteritis. It sucked and it was an absolutely miserable experience. So even if I was fully guaranteed that no one would die (which is unlikely given what happened previously with my mother in law who is currently living with us) I would do what I could to avoid coming down with it.

[steveBK123]

Yes, many miss the impact of the illness not just the death. This is why a lot of white collar remote-able firms have kept us home.

It is in your companies self-interest to have everyone home&working than having large numbers of staff out sick for days to weeks in batches as the virus cuts through open office floor plans and poorly ventilated conference rooms..