[nrclark]

It's a complicated problem. I have the luxury of a tech job that lets me work from home, and forgives a couple of distracted days if my toddler's home sick with me.

Not everybody is so lucky.

Lots of people have jobs where they can't just skip out for a few days. Do our bus-drivers, cooks, and teachers have that luxury? Do their jobs allow them to have it? What about surgeons or doctors?

How many days can somebody take off in a row if their kid is sick? 2? 3? A week?

Sometimes, parents have to make a hard choice about whether to send their kids to school with a cough. It's just another harsh reality of the society we live in.

When my kid comes home from daycare and gets us all sick, you can bet that I'm mad at the other parents. But it's also not my place to judge them, because I don't know what they have to juggle.

[nradov]

There are dozens of endemic upper respiratory viruses, including four other coronaviruses. It's probably to our long term advantage to get infected with as many of those as possible when we're young and healthy. While the symptoms may be unpleasant and inconvenient, the resulting cellular immunity gives us some protection when we're old and frail. Short term costs versus long term benefits.

[tsol]

Why wouldn't this be true for older people too? In the case we should encourage everyone to go to work sick.

It reminds me of something from The Office;

>Dwight K. Schrute: The worst thing you can do for your immune system is to coddle it. They need to fight their own battles. If Sabre really cared about our well-being, they would set up hand de-sanitizing stations. A simple bowl at every juncture filled with dirt, vomit, fecal matter...

[caddemon]

Well the immune system does change over development, but still it's a hot take. I don't think it's 100% incorrect, but it is going to vary wildly by the person, their current state, the exact disease, etc. In ways we don't even fully understand yet. It's also wrong to expose others to infection unnecessarily without their consent obviously, even if it would have positive health consequences long term.

But yeah, that quote from The Office is pretty hilarious, thanks for sharing!