OT: REI, Covid, Real Estate, WFH

[Remix]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rei-bu...outdoor-retailer-wants-to-sell-it-11597263188

 

[Tom_Murphy]

My next door neighbor works for National Grid. They are work from home for the foreseeable future. They cleared out their cubicles and were given nice desks and chairs for their home office set-up.

My SIL works for a very large car insurance company. They are work from home for the foreseeable future but haven't cleared out the offices yet.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

A non-paywalled story: REI to sell its never-used Bellevue headquarters and shift office work to multiple Seattle-area sites

 

[richard]

When I go out into any public place I’ll wear a face mask and try to keep a reasonable distance.But, I think that if it’s as bad as the news media is telling us, I’d be dead by now. I don’t know of anyone who has had the virus. I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone who has or had the virus. I do believe that it is real. But not to the extent that we are being led to believe. I also believe that there is an agenda. There is an ulterior motivation.

 

[Peakbagr]

Let's keep this from straying into mask-no mask political debate.

 

[sierra]

When I go out into any public place I’ll wear a face mask and try to keep a reasonable distance.But, I think that if it’s as bad as the news media is telling us, I’d be dead by now. I don’t know of anyone who has had the virus. I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone who has or had the virus. I do believe that it is real. But not to the extent that we are being led to believe. I also believe that there is an agenda. There is an ulterior motivation.

It is perplexing to say the least. You hear one report saying we are doing better and things are looking up. You change the channel and hear dire predictions of doom for the foreseeable future. I heard from a relative I ran into after 30 years or so, my uncle died of Covid19. But, he was in a nursing home and wasn't doing great before he got it. I have chosen to err on the side of caution and take whatever means I can to be safe. Just today, I went to Home Depot looking for a late season deal on a bush. Usually me and my dog walk the aisles of the store, but I didn't need anything, and it was not something I "needed" to do, so we left. I'm a mask wearer in public, to be honest, I don't find it that much of an inconvenience. I still avoid public restrooms as well.

 

[maineguy]

Concerning the REI move: I'm just amazed at all the people who are able to work from home. I never had a job that would allow that. With the except of the military (which certainly couldn't be done at home), they all involved the design, building and testing of tangible things like medical or electronic equipment. Obviously all these workers aren't building or manufacturing anything except maybe a software program or such. Gives you some idea how little is made in America anymore

 

[peakbagger]

One of the hiking discussions that used to come up pre covid was how the younger generations desired moving into the cities an how the small towns were emptying out. My standard speculation was a couple of coordinated terrorist events would drive people out of cities. I guess I was wrong on the cause but there does seem to be shift to the suburbs.

Recent news is that the Waterville Valley School system has double the enrollment of last year. Familys moved up to their second homes this spring and are enrolling their kids in school in the small school system rather than heading home.

 

[Mike P.]

SE CT is seeing more people from larger areas also. I've seen several school mates names in the Obits who have lost parents and my Mother-in-law has been almost imprisoned in her assisted living home. CT the other day had a positivity rate of .28% Snowbirds may actual stay a bit longer. We were in NJ for a week and saw some young Jersey Shore II wannabees not wearing masks and the ice cream locations were very crowded with people not social distancing and eating without masks of course. (an all ages bar scene)

In case you missed it, Disney changed their rules so if you were eating, you had to stay still, no more grazing as you walked. Waiting to see what comes out of Sturgis, thing is, they will disperse back to all 50 states. Biggest issue is that the asymptomatic are not getting tested as they feel fine. They have to ability to infect everyone they come into close contact with & if they believe it's overblown, they are spreading it. We have possibly 10's of 1000's of Covid Charlie's, in places where only those with symptoms are getting tested is testing after the fact. (Typhoid Mary was already taken) Crowds in tight places should be avoided, A venue in England just had a concert where they had a festival type location with seating in small pods so you and your friends were not interacting with people outside your group and your group had a cap of 10 or 15.

 

[nartreb]

I can believe there are plenty of people in NH who don't know anybody who's gotten sick. In Massachusetts almost 2% of the population has tested positive - that's enough for most people to know somebody who got sick, and to know somebody who knows somebody who died or who got rushed-to-the-hospital-barely-breathing sick. In new hampshire it's more like half a percent, and it's mostly in the areas nearest to Massachusetts - basically Concord and southward, plus extra clusters in tourist hot-spots like Conway, Laconia, and Keene. There are about three dozen small towns in NH that have never seen a single case.
That's if you're looking at cumulative cases since February. If you look at reported currently-active cases, then outside of the Manchester-Nashua area, the numbers look just about negligible: under 5 cases in Concord NH, for example.
Right now transmission is slow - in both states, new cases seem to be slightly outnumbered by recoveries- so the situation is going to be pretty stable, barring some kind of disaster. I expect some new clusters when schools re-open, but not a dramatic change of fortunes. I'm sure some knucklehead will make the news by spreading virus from Sturgis to Laconia and then home to Boston, but it's not likely they'll make a big enough difference to be visible in the statistics.

Maps for NH:
cumulative: https://dashboard.nh.gov/t/DHHS/views/COVID-19LrgMaps/MAPCumulativeLrg.pdf

currently active: https://dashboard.nh.gov/#/site/DHHS/views/COVID-19LrgMaps/MAPCurrentCasesLrg.pdf

More NH info: https://www.nh.gov/covid19/