The Covid-19 Thread: News, Preparation Tips, Etc

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
This is ironic because there was a story last year about a transplant recipient who died because the donor's organs tested positive after the transplant. If I'm remembering it correctly, the donor was tested before passing but got a false negative. It was posted in this thread but it's so long now I have no idea how to find it.

ETA: Google is my friend. :laugh:

It was actually early this year.

Michigan woman dies of COVID-19 after transplant from infected donor

A Michigan woman contracted COVID-19 and died last fall two months after a double-lung transplant, doctors have said.

Researchers have suggested in a study that the woman, who was not named, is the first proven case of transmission from an organ transplant in the United States, raising questions on appropriate COVID screenings for potential donors.

The researchers who conducted the study noted that one of the surgeons who handled the donor lungs was also infected, proving 'donor origin of recipient and health care worker infection.'

A surgeon became sick and tested positive for COVID-19 four days after handing the donor's lungs but recovered, according to the study - which was published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

The case, being the only confirmed transmission among nearly 40,000 transplants in 2020, appears to be an isolated occurrence, according to Kaiser Health News.

The donated lungs came from a woman from the Upper Midwest who died after suffering a severe brain injury in a car accident.

The donor's lungs were then transplanted into a woman with chronic obstructive lung disease, known as COPD, at University Hospital in Ann Arbor.

Dr. Daniel Richard Kaul, director of the Transplant Infectious Disease Service at the University of Michigan Medical School, said nose and throat samples routinely collected from organ donors and recipients tested negative for COVID-19.

'We would absolutely not have used the lungs if we'd had a positive COVID test,' Kaul told Kaiser Helath News.

He added: 'All the screening that we normally do and are able to do, we did.'

By the third day after the transplant, the woman 'developed worsening fever, hypotension, and ventilator requirements' and imaging showed a lung infection, according to the study.

When the patient started presenting with septic shock, doctors decided to send samples from her lungs for coronavirus testing - which came back positive.

Doctors returned to samples from the transplant donor's nose and throat, which had tested negative for COVID-19.

'History obtained from family revealed no history of travel or any recent fever, cough, headache, or diarrhea,' the study reads.

'It is unknown if the donor had any recent exposures to persons known or suspected to be infected with SARS-CoV-2.'

Doctors then tested a sample of fluid taken from deep within the donated lungs before they were implanted, which later came back positive for the virus.

Researchers said that genetic screening revealed that 'both the transplant recipient and the surgeon acquired SARS-CoV-2 from the donor lungs.'

The woman's health quickly deteriorated and she was not considered a candidate for re-transplantation. Doctors said support was withdrawn and she died on 61 days after the transplant.

The study concluded that donor-derived infection from COVID-19 'has significant implications for the health of the recipient,' but also for health care workers who may be exposed prior to the recipient's diagnosis.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which oversees transplants, does not require organ donors to have been tested for COVID-19, according to Kaiser Health News.

'Transplant centers and organ procurement organizations should consider the possible perform SARS-CoV-2 testing of lower respiratory tract specimens from potential lung donors, and consider enhanced personal protective equipment for health care workers involved in lung procurement and transplantation,' according to the study.
Exactly.
Organs remain very hard to come by and it takes the literal movement of mountains within a FEW HOURS notice to harvest, pack on ice, to get an organ into a recipient.

Living in a pandemic has a lot to do with plain ol' HARM reduction.
The vaccine, masks can help your chances. Its not a proven SHIELD or cure.
If more vaccinated people cluster in a family group or work space, the risk of closing down or hospitalized family members decreases (FACTS). Doesn't mean the chances of infection are ZERO.

Asking an organ donor to be vaccinated is an attempt to reduce the risk infection.

The sick surgeon who INFECTED the donor recipient might have been vaccinated...and they went on and recovered.
The unvaccinated recipient would be remiss to leave themselves so vulnerable. If I'm accepting some poor soul's healthy offering of their organs, the least I can do is to make all attempts to make their donation worthwhile. Like it really sucks.
 

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
Our kids at school are doing a great job wearing their masks. If they forget they cover their face and run to us for an extra. We have district provided cloth and surgical masks. Even the littles. They wear them pretty faithfully.

And they sometimes don’t change them. For days.

Have you ever gotten a glimpse of the inside of a child’s unwashed mask (retch)??

Thank you for sending your kids to school with masks. But for the love of god, wash them!!

ETA We offer new ones but sometimes they are attached to the nasty mask they have. Also looking at wet spots on a persons mask makes me retch. But at least they are being worn.
In our family we are mostly disposable. She gets a new one daily. We are stocked up.
I'm sorry EARTH.
But not really.

And we do have lots of cloth ones as well. I wash them in a special mesh bag for bras. But we often leave it in the house and the car is full of a bag of clean disposable masks for kids. She also has extras in her backpack as well. She is suffering from allergies right now (our city is a special case and probably the allergy capital of the state if not the region) so I am resigned to a fresh new one everyday. I know for a fact parents were whining about sending their kids to school with dirty masks so I'm just overall overhype about it.
 

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
We need to correlate this to the economic/job crisis as well.

So September predicted some kind of uptick in people returning to the workforce due to school starting but that has proven to not be the case. The facts show women (who make up over 40% of the American Workforce) have failed to return. Single women pre-COVID were the Head of Household. You didn't have so much of a worry with married women or households with 2 parents (unmarried).

If you lose a parent, lets say the breadwinner, if you still have one parent left, and you have maybe one school age and say 1-2 pre-school age kid, thats a cost you likely cannot afford. That lower wage parent who's income was simply to supplement won't stretch.

Florida has some of the cheaper day care costs with an AVERAGE of $700/month (PER CHILD).
Minimum wage here is still $8.25. Thats 17,160/year. Daycare is now 48% of your total income. Thats 8760.00/year (or $730/month) LEFT to live on.

Avg. Rent in FL is $950.00 for a 1/1.

So with kids---who gonna run back to work? That MIGHT work for someone with 1 child. If you were the wife making minimum wage in FL and you lost your husband to COVID-19 recently....and say ya'll have 3 kids--forget it. You're moving out and moving with parents, and in some cases, people are splitting their children amongst relatives.

EDIT: No she CANNOT go and work a second shift or job because she needs childcare for those late hours (more money) and she needs to be home helping somebody with homework and feeding some mouths the little food she has.
 

Peppermynt

Defying Gravity
So a second friend of mine has had a close call. And this one is my sister from another mother.

She usually housesits for friends in Delaware who have two cats every summer. I’ve gone with her in years past but not this year. Anyway, she gets there and finds out that the couples trip to Aruba is postponed because they tested positive prior to getting clearance for their flight. The couple was vaccinated but not sure which vaccines.

Anyway my “sis” stays at a hotel instead of their home and returns. She gets tested to be sure and is negative. But the woman from the couple who were to travel is now in the hospital as of Sunday as her oxygen levels are really low and she’s had a fever for about 5 days. My sis said the woman is really scared.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.

‘I’m getting compassion fatigue’: My parents said they’d rather quit their jobs and lose everything than get the COVID-19 vaccine​

Dear Quentin,

I’m 24 years old and living on a lower income. I’m chronically ill, and I have a pile of student loans.

I’m applying for better jobs and working on building my credit, so I can refinance my student loans and set myself up to be able to buy a home on the off chance that the market crashes.

However, none of that is my main financial stressor at the moment. Nope, that would be my unvaccinated parents.

They refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Even losing our uncle to COVID has done nothing to convince them. They’ve even said they’d rather quit their jobs and lose everything than get vaccinated!

We have a bad family history of health problems, and if they catch COVID it likely won’t end well. I’m terrified that my siblings and I will be left to handle their mortgage, the funeral and/or medical expenses, none of which we can afford.

As frustrated as I am that this could create a bad financial situation for myself, their deaths or job losses would completely destroy my siblings’ lives, as they’re still in college and depend on them.
The last thing I want is for them to have to completely give up their dreams because of our parents’ selfishness and ignorance. While we would be eligible for some tribal help, there’s no way I could completely support them.

I’m not even getting into the fact that they didn’t handle some of my obvious health and dental issues when I was younger, leaving me to foot the bills now, or that one of my siblings and I are closeted and live in constant fear of being outed and disowned.

I still love my parents and keep hoping that one day they’ll be better humans, but I am getting compassion fatigue, and I am trying to practically prepare for a hard, sad future.

I wish we could have a serious financial talk about how their choices affect their children, but it would only make things worse. If something happens to my parents, what are we responsible for, and what can we do to protect ourselves?

Enough is Enough


Dear Enough,

You can talk to your parents about making sure they have adequate health insurance, and tell them that you want them to live long lives where they see their children and/or grandchildren grow up. Please remember that the worst has not happened. It may not happen.

In the meantime, you can show them the many peer-reviewed studies on how the COVID-19 vaccines dramatically reduce hospitalization and death from the coronavirus. Unfortunately, the virus has become politicized and millions of people still refuse to take the vaccines that are now available.

Even with the highly contagious delta variant now the most common strain in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that fully vaccinated people have a 5 times reduced risk of infection and 10 times reduced risk of hospitalization and death.

But, as you say, you can’t force people to live the life that you believe is smarter and healthier, and take other people into account. They are at a higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, and at a higher risk of transmitting the virus if they are unvaccinated.

There are new therapeutic treatments in development. Merck MRK, -0.43% and Ridgeback Therapeutics are seeking emergency-use authorization after sharing initial results that molnupiravir, which comes in pill form, cuts the risk of death or hospitalization in half. It is not a substitute for the vaccine or for responsible social distancing.

There’s concern that people will rely on such potential therapeutic treatments in lieu of getting a vaccine. But as Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Infectious Diseases Division, previously told MarketWatch, “It’s not a magic pill.”

Your parents will live their lives and you will lead yours, and it’s premature to worry about funeral expenses, even if there are ways to save on them. Ultimately, you can’t change people. You can give them the information and allow them to make their own decisions. It’s frustrating and stressful, but it’s out of your control.

You can read more about how other families approached their loved ones about the importance of getting the COVID-19 vaccination here.

Filial responsibility
More than two dozen U.S. states have so-called filial responsibility laws, which can be traced back to colonial times and (in theory, at least) impose a duty on adult children to support their impoverished parents. You have no reason to worry. They are rarely, if ever, enforced.

They date back to England’s Elizabethan Poor Relief Act of 1601, which required the grandparents, parents, and children of every poor, blind, lame and impotent person to support that individual if they were so able, according to the law firm Burke, Costanza and Carberry.

But they are invoked when there is alleged skulduggery. “Federal and state laws permit Medicaid to seek reimbursement from recipients’ estates. However, an increasing number of recipients are hiding their financial assets to meet Medicaid’s standards,” it adds.

(One of the filial responsibility states is Pennsylvania, which did use filial responsibility to force an adult child to pay his mother’s bill. In 2012, a Pennsylvania court ruled that an adult son must pay his mother’s unpaid $93,000 nursing home bill, but that was after the family had moved their mother to Greece.)

Ultimately, it seems like your long, difficult history with your parents and their apparently lax approach to their children’s health — as well as their own, as you see it — is mixed up with your current feelings about their refusal to get the Pfizer/BioNTech PFE, -0.30% BNTX, 0.84% or Moderna MRNA, 2.29% vaccine.

That’s understandable, but it’s important to put their decision and your own life into perspective. There comes a time when you have to let go, allow them to make their own decisions, and do your best to safeguard your own financial, physical and mental health.

Keep doing what you’re doing. Enlist the support of your siblings — you have a better chance of getting through any worst-case scenario as a group — and endeavor to be a compassionate and understanding son. Sometimes people teach us how to move through the world by showing us what not to do.

You can love your parents and disagree with their outlook on the world. You have become an independent person in the face of your own health struggles, and have proven that you are not a prisoner of the past. Keep paying off your loans, working hard, and checking in with your parents to see what, if anything, they need.

Rest assured that you are doing — and have done — everything you can.
 

Leeda.the.Paladin

Well-Known Member
For which reason(s)? Forced vaccines or generally being overworked during the pandemic?

More than 24,000 nurses and other health care workers at Kaiser Permanente in California and Oregon have overwhelmingly authorized a strike, threatening to walk out over pay and working conditions strained by the coronavirus pandemic.

Kaiser, one of the nation’s largest health care providers, has proposed a two-tiered wage and benefits system that would give newer employees lower pay and fewer health protections.
 

B_Phlyy

Pineapple Eating Unicorn
Word on my nursing board is that there are nurses (24k) getting ready to strike …
I can believe it.

My company was non union, but myself and 2 other nurses left our old clinic after 5+ years. 4 nurses from some of our sister clinics also put in their notice soon after. The #1 reason was pay (everyone got at least 20% more) and #2 less commuting.

They wanted me to train 2 agency nurses who I knew were getting paid more than me even though they were new grads. And the kicker ? They wanted me to cancel my planned and paid for vacation to do the training before I officially left.

For which reason(s)? Forced vaccines or generally being overworked during the pandemic?

Likely both but mostly the working conditions through the pandemic. I absolutely hated having to recycle and reuse my PPE those first few months. HATED. IT. And Agent Orange and the media spreading so much misinformation. Especially since they also weren't setting boundaries or helping manage expectations. A person can only take getting cursed out daily or having to watch multiple people fail to progress to health for only so long.

I was initially skeptical of the vaccines myself so I can understand that. But I did my research (I mean, as a health care professional, I can access some of the studies/articles through my job) and I'm very glad I am vaccinated. Now I have a job with 90% less patient contact so it worked out.
 

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
Ugh--had to interview a dad for services with us for his 3 month old born super premature. Mom still in a skilled nursing facility undergoing rehab. She was diagnosed with COVID-19 at 28 weeks and bc she had to be intubated 2 days later, so they had to take the baby at that time. Baby just got out of the NICU and dad is back to work already trying to pull resources and just as lost and confused as all get out. Most likely shell shocked. Says his wife usually takes care of this. My heart went out to him and I tried to help. Mom was d/c from rehab and was moved to another. She isn't 30. He is 44. No prior significant health history. She care barely walk, and do activities of daily living. I hate COVID.
 

winterinatl

All natural!
These people have it twisted. They are so entitled. They ARE free. Free to be dismissed from their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated.

My district managed to account for every staff member but five, who will be fired. That’s pretty damn good in a place serving 20k kids. However. I don’t know how many folks got the exemption for religious or philosophical beliefs or medical reasons.
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
TLDR - Americans are resigning in droves during the Great Resignation. The largest numbers are in fields with poor pay and poor working conditions (made worse by the pandemic). The 4 fields seeing the largest numbers resigning are healthcare, childcare/residential care, retail, and restaurant/hospitality.

Workers Are Quitting These 4 Kinds of Jobs in Droves

Is America a nation of quitters? It could look that way based on the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which shows that a whopping 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August.

The number of workers walking away has been elevated for months this year, in a trend that's been dubbed "the Great Resignation." But the figures from August represent a new high, with 2.9% of the workforce voluntarily leaving their jobs — compared to between 2.5% and 2.8% for the preceding four months and just 2.1% in August 2020.

Why are so many workers quitting? In a press release, the BLS states simply that "the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs."

The high levels of quitting seems to be a good indication that people are not happy with their jobs — often due to low pay and difficult working conditions — and also that they see better opportunities elsewhere, which is unsurprising given that companies must compete for employees due to a much-heralded labor shortage. The number of job openings in America fell slightly in the most recent report, but it's still near an all-time high.

As you'll see in our list below of jobs that workers are quitting in droves, many are positions that routinely deal with the public, on the frontlines of the pandemic. And many of them don't have salaries that many workers feel are high enough to justify the risks and stress of all that entails.

So, naturally, people in these positions are looking elsewhere and finding news jobs with higher pay or better conditions, when they can. Or they're possibly leaving their old industries in search of entirely new lines of work.

As the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman put it this week, "Long-suffering American workers, who have been underpaid and overworked for years, may have hit their breaking point." Here are the jobs being quit by workers in huge numbers lately:

Nurses, health care workers and hospital employees​

Roughly 534,000 workers in the BLS's health care and social assistance category — which includes nurses, hospital employees and other healthcare workers — quit their jobs in August 2021. That's over 100,000 more than how many quit in August of 2020 (404,000). (BLS data groups these numbers into broad categories, so it's often difficult to tell exactly which specific kinds of positions people are quitting.)

While the August 2021 quit numbers represent a new peak in this category, tons of these employees have been leaving their jobs for months: 499,000 in April, 472,000 in May, 502,000 in June, 532,000 in July.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise either. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses and hospital workers have been asked to work extra-long hours, under tense circumstances, and the pay often isn't great. Early on in the pandemic, there were vast layoffs too.

According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 18% of healthcare workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, and another 30% say they've considered leaving. Burnout and insufficient pay have been named as the top reasons for those who quit.

Certain kinds of nurses are especially likely to feel like quitting. In another survey, from American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 66% of nurses in critical care said that working through the pandemic has caused them to consider leaving the nursing profession entirely.

Child care and residential facility workers​

These workers also fall under the BLS's health care and social assistance category, and they too are quitting in sizable numbers.

Child care employment is still down over 125,000 positions compared to before the pandemic, the Washington Post reported, and 80% of child care centers said they were experiencing staffing shortages this past summer. Low pay is probably the biggest reason for the shortage; daycare workers usually make only around $12 an hour.

Likewise, home health aides and residential care workers are generally low-paid positions — the former have median annual earnings of around $27,000 — and they too are leaving their jobs. As of July, nursing homes and residential care facilities employed 380,000 fewer workers than they did before the pandemic.

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A personal loan can help you mitigate losses and get back on track. Click here to explore your options!
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Retail workers​

America's retail workers have had it especially rough during the pandemic. More than 2 million retail workers were laid off by the spring of 2020 due to shutdowns, and many of the employees who kept their jobs — in supermarkets, pharmacies and other essential stores — found themselves on the front line of the pandemic, at heightened risk of being infected.

And the pay in many retail jobs is quite low. Median hourly wages for cashiers, retail salespeople and stock clerks were $12 to $13 in 2020, according to the BLS.

Are you noticing a pattern? People are especially prone to be quitting positions with low pay and high stress this year. Among the positions grouped under the BLS's retail trade category — mostly, workers in stores open to the public — 721,000 quit in August 2021, compared to 505,000 the same month in 2020.

Hotel and restaurant workers​

Restaurant, hotel, entertainment and hospitality workers are also among the employees who have had enough this year. In some cases, the resignations in 2021 have been dramatic, like when all the workers at a Burger King in Nebraska walked out and left behind a "We all quit" sign.

While other resignations haven't been quite as dramatic, they've still been very large in quantity. A total of 971,000 workers in leisure and hospitality quit in August 2021, and most of them (892,000) were categorized in the accommodation and food services fields. In other words, they're mostly hotel and restaurant workers.

Slightly less than 7% of these workers nationally quit in August 2021 — 6.8%, to be precise. That's the highest rate of quitting by far of any industry catalogued by the BLS. (Retail trade had the second highest quit rate in August, at 4.7%.)

Roughly 700,000 hotel and restaurant workers left each month in April, May and June of this year, and then the number of quits rose to 735,000 in July before spiking to just under 900,000 in August.

Why are so many of these workers taking their talents elsewhere? As many employees and union activists say, the nation isn't suffering a labor shortage so much a "wage shortage."

President Joe Biden framed the issue in a similar way when asked about the labor shortage this past summer. His advice to businesses who were struggling to hire or retain workers was simply: "Pay them more."
 

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
TLDR - Americans are resigning in droves during the Great Resignation. The largest numbers are in fields with poor pay and poor working conditions (made worse by the pandemic). The 4 fields seeing the largest numbers resigning are healthcare, childcare/residential care, retail, and restaurant/hospitality.

Workers Are Quitting These 4 Kinds of Jobs in Droves

Is America a nation of quitters? It could look that way based on the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which shows that a whopping 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August.

The number of workers walking away has been elevated for months this year, in a trend that's been dubbed "the Great Resignation." But the figures from August represent a new high, with 2.9% of the workforce voluntarily leaving their jobs — compared to between 2.5% and 2.8% for the preceding four months and just 2.1% in August 2020.

Why are so many workers quitting? In a press release, the BLS states simply that "the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs."

The high levels of quitting seems to be a good indication that people are not happy with their jobs — often due to low pay and difficult working conditions — and also that they see better opportunities elsewhere, which is unsurprising given that companies must compete for employees due to a much-heralded labor shortage. The number of job openings in America fell slightly in the most recent report, but it's still near an all-time high.

As you'll see in our list below of jobs that workers are quitting in droves, many are positions that routinely deal with the public, on the frontlines of the pandemic. And many of them don't have salaries that many workers feel are high enough to justify the risks and stress of all that entails.

So, naturally, people in these positions are looking elsewhere and finding news jobs with higher pay or better conditions, when they can. Or they're possibly leaving their old industries in search of entirely new lines of work.

As the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman put it this week, "Long-suffering American workers, who have been underpaid and overworked for years, may have hit their breaking point." Here are the jobs being quit by workers in huge numbers lately:

Nurses, health care workers and hospital employees​

Roughly 534,000 workers in the BLS's health care and social assistance category — which includes nurses, hospital employees and other healthcare workers — quit their jobs in August 2021. That's over 100,000 more than how many quit in August of 2020 (404,000). (BLS data groups these numbers into broad categories, so it's often difficult to tell exactly which specific kinds of positions people are quitting.)

While the August 2021 quit numbers represent a new peak in this category, tons of these employees have been leaving their jobs for months: 499,000 in April, 472,000 in May, 502,000 in June, 532,000 in July.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise either. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses and hospital workers have been asked to work extra-long hours, under tense circumstances, and the pay often isn't great. Early on in the pandemic, there were vast layoffs too.

According to a recent Morning Consult poll, 18% of healthcare workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, and another 30% say they've considered leaving. Burnout and insufficient pay have been named as the top reasons for those who quit.

Certain kinds of nurses are especially likely to feel like quitting. In another survey, from American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 66% of nurses in critical care said that working through the pandemic has caused them to consider leaving the nursing profession entirely.

Child care and residential facility workers​

These workers also fall under the BLS's health care and social assistance category, and they too are quitting in sizable numbers.

Child care employment is still down over 125,000 positions compared to before the pandemic, the Washington Post reported, and 80% of child care centers said they were experiencing staffing shortages this past summer. Low pay is probably the biggest reason for the shortage; daycare workers usually make only around $12 an hour.

Likewise, home health aides and residential care workers are generally low-paid positions — the former have median annual earnings of around $27,000 — and they too are leaving their jobs. As of July, nursing homes and residential care facilities employed 380,000 fewer workers than they did before the pandemic.

You never know when you might find yourself financially strapped - the good news is you have options.
A personal loan can help you mitigate losses and get back on track. Click here to explore your options!
Apply Today

Retail workers​

America's retail workers have had it especially rough during the pandemic. More than 2 million retail workers were laid off by the spring of 2020 due to shutdowns, and many of the employees who kept their jobs — in supermarkets, pharmacies and other essential stores — found themselves on the front line of the pandemic, at heightened risk of being infected.

And the pay in many retail jobs is quite low. Median hourly wages for cashiers, retail salespeople and stock clerks were $12 to $13 in 2020, according to the BLS.

Are you noticing a pattern? People are especially prone to be quitting positions with low pay and high stress this year. Among the positions grouped under the BLS's retail trade category — mostly, workers in stores open to the public — 721,000 quit in August 2021, compared to 505,000 the same month in 2020.

Hotel and restaurant workers​

Restaurant, hotel, entertainment and hospitality workers are also among the employees who have had enough this year. In some cases, the resignations in 2021 have been dramatic, like when all the workers at a Burger King in Nebraska walked out and left behind a "We all quit" sign.

While other resignations haven't been quite as dramatic, they've still been very large in quantity. A total of 971,000 workers in leisure and hospitality quit in August 2021, and most of them (892,000) were categorized in the accommodation and food services fields. In other words, they're mostly hotel and restaurant workers.

Slightly less than 7% of these workers nationally quit in August 2021 — 6.8%, to be precise. That's the highest rate of quitting by far of any industry catalogued by the BLS. (Retail trade had the second highest quit rate in August, at 4.7%.)

Roughly 700,000 hotel and restaurant workers left each month in April, May and June of this year, and then the number of quits rose to 735,000 in July before spiking to just under 900,000 in August.

Why are so many of these workers taking their talents elsewhere? As many employees and union activists say, the nation isn't suffering a labor shortage so much a "wage shortage."

President Joe Biden framed the issue in a similar way when asked about the labor shortage this past summer. His advice to businesses who were struggling to hire or retain workers was simply: "Pay them more."
Its so funny bc people swear its because people don't want the vaccine. Thats not even the issue. In the south this is DEF not the biggest issue because most southern governors are opposed. This was bound to happen in the next few years---especially when people would realize the $15/min wage would not be enough. The status quo of the gig economy was never sustainable. Employers are faced with increasing wages and benefits, job flexibility voluntarily or face changing how much they stand to profit or close altogether. Many large companies will simply pivot, but many smaller companies will suffer.

Then the shipping crisis will be felt for years to come. Its been a domino effect that will cause inflation in a way we have never seen. The CEO of Columbia clothing said on NPR today that Americans won't have the ginormous clothing choices anymore. Rather than have access to a coat in your clothing size with 6 different colors to choose from you'll be extremely limited. We were pretty spoiled as far as choices compared to other countries and we'll simply have to do without. Companies had been able to keep costs down but its officially spiraling out of control. So the pay increases need to come now, voluntarily or the work/wage issue is going to have people marching in the streets protesting due to pay not being able to keep up with inflation. True inflation really hasn't been seen in over 30 years. The rationale for keeping wages low was that we hadn't had inflation in a while and so they made small cost of living adjustments because retail for example stayed relatively affordable. But besides the cost of food, watch the cost of clothing.
 

naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
Ya'll I've been talking about this non-stop cause its fascinating to me. I have shared my concerns with staffing in the Career Development forum as well. I'll probably talk about this a little more. But since the numbers came out and the new term "Great Resignation" was coined I'm intrigued.


This article was in June:

Edited to add: According to the article, 4M people quit their jobs in April as well.
So something is amiss. The first paragraph definitely taps into MOST people's feelings.

2nd guy featured shared this after deciding to take a furlough--he then quit the restaurant business after working in it 26 years:
In the months that followed, Golembiewski's life changed. He was spending time doing fun things like setting up a playroom in his garage for his two young children and cooking dinner for the family. At age 42, he got a glimpse of what life could be like if he didn't have to put in 50 to 60 hours a week at the restaurant and miss Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning with his family.
 

sunshinebeautiful

Well-Known Member
Ya'll I've been talking about this non-stop cause its fascinating to me. I have shared my concerns with staffing in the Career Development forum as well. I'll probably talk about this a little more. But since the numbers came out and the new term "Great Resignation" was coined I'm intrigued.


This article was in June:

Edited to add: According to the article, 4M people quit their jobs in April as well.
So something is amiss. The first paragraph definitely taps into MOST people's feelings.

2nd guy featured shared this after deciding to take a furlough--he then quit the restaurant business after working in it 26 years:
In the months that followed, Golembiewski's life changed. He was spending time doing fun things like setting up a playroom in his garage for his two young children and cooking dinner for the family. At age 42, he got a glimpse of what life could be like if he didn't have to put in 50 to 60 hours a week at the restaurant and miss Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning with his family.

I'm part of the Great Resignation numbers. The "Remote work changes hearts and minds" section says it all for me. I made some different prioritizations, especially after I had covid myself.

I was living about 400 miles away from the rest of my family. Remote work wasn't an option until it was - and I was working from wherever I had a wifi connection for almost 18 months. As a result, I was able to spent more time with my family than I had in years. Honestly I didn't want to go back to "before."

Although I work in an office, I can work now remotely 1-2 days per week or more if needed. I'm glad I'm back here now so that I can provide support to my aging parents (in which my mother is still providing care to my 101 year old grandmother). I'm also staying with family (temporarily) and stacking paper. It's been working out so far for me for quality of life reasons.
 

BrownBetty

Well-Known Member
I'm not surprised by the great resignation, the US has spent decades blaming poverty on the masses. The US tells folks you are the reason you are poor, you choose to work in food service, retail, grocery store etc... now people have taken the advice and made their choices.
Also, they are arguing about paying people $15/hr and benefits during a pandemic. I don't blame people at all.
 
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Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
It’s a well known fact that our true CEO thinks we should consider ourselves lucky to work for him. Last year we took on even more projects on top of impossible constantly moving deadlines, no resources and they made Juneteenth a floating “All Lives Matter” holiday o stead of giving the actual day off. The puppet CEO made an empty platitude statement about diversity and inclusion on the anniversary date of Juneteenth when there isn’t a single black man or woman in leadership and on the board of directors. The only reason I was even promoted to my role was because someone quit because the project is impossible and the VP (who also recently quit) had to apologize to me last year when he repeatedly disrespected me for openly refusing to acknowledging my role as the SME in our department in helping teach and train our sites on a novel cellular therapeutic product but gave all the credit to an incompetent white trial manager that I was forced to work under and carry the entire time. I am the lowest paid trial manager doing the most work leading directors on the most high profile project and when I applied for an associate director role in another department that the previous AD knew I was perfect for and told the Director that he thought very highly of me for they completely changed the job description so I would not be eligible. This among many other reasons is why I decided to start courting the multiple much higher paying offers being flung at me and why I am about about to join my third round interview in 5 minutes. #greatresignation
 
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naturalgyrl5199

Well-Known Member
It’s a well known fact that our true CEO thinks we should consider ourselves lucky to work for him. Last year we took on even more projects on top of impossible constantly moving deadlines, no resources and they made Juneteenth a floating “All Lives Matter” holiday o stead of giving the actual day off. The puppet CEO made an empty platitude statement about diversity and inclusion on the anniversary date of Juneteenth when there isn’t a single black man or woman in leadership and on the board of directors. The only reason I was even promoted to my role was because someone quit because the project is impossible and the VP (who also recently quit) had to apologize to me last year when he repeatedly disrespected me for openly refusing to acknowledging my role as the SME in our department in helping teach and train our sites on a novel cellular therapeutic product but gave all the credit to an incompetent white trial manager that I was forced to work under and carry the entire time. I am the lowest paid trial manager doing the most work leading directors on the most high profile project and when I applied for an associate director role in another department that the previous AD knew I was perfect for and told the Director that he thought very highly of me for they completely changed the job description so I would not be eligible. This among many other reasons is why I decided to start courting the multiple much higher paying offers being flung at me and why I am about about to join my third round interview in 5 minutes. #greatresignation
I hope the interview went well!
 

Peppermynt

Defying Gravity
So a second friend of mine has had a close call. And this one is my sister from another mother.

She usually housesits for friends in Delaware who have two cats every summer. I’ve gone with her in years past but not this year. Anyway, she gets there and finds out that the couples trip to Aruba is postponed because they tested positive prior to getting clearance for their flight. The couple was vaccinated but not sure which vaccines.

Anyway my “sis” stays at a hotel instead of their home and returns. She gets tested to be sure and is negative. But the woman from the couple who were to travel is now in the hospital as of Sunday as her oxygen levels are really low and she’s had a fever for about 5 days. My sis said the woman is really scared.
So the good news is the Delaware friend of my "sis" is home as of last Friday. The friend ("K") reports she's feeling around a 6 out of 10 but overall its good news that she's home. K had the J&J vaccine. Not sure what K's husband had - he was sick but not in hospital ...

If I get more info I'll share as K was apparently on some medicine for 5 days while in there - not sure if this is the antibody regiment (which I thought needed to begin asap) or something else they're doing now.
 
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