Coronavirus update (4) - March 12, 2020

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edited March 2020 in Company Communications

Hi everyone,

This is an update to our COVID-19 communication from March 11, 2020.

Today's experiment has revealed a few kinks in our daily meeting events, but those are being ironed out. So far, nothing unexpected has happened that would prevent us from getting our work done. Things seem to be going well.

As a result, we are making the decision to implement an indefinite mandatory social distancing policy, effective immediately. This means that all Vanilla employees are required to work from home and encouraged to avoid public transit as much as possible. Try to avoid other gatherings, too, like gyms, yoga, churches, concerts, events, etc.

This policy might seem extreme and reactionary, which is understandable. That said, I believe that Vanilla has a moral responsibility to all of us to act in our best interests as much as possible. We, in turn, have a moral obligation to be responsible national and global citizens. If we act now, we can assist our country by "flattening the curve" of new cases and reducing the eventual load on our healthcare system.

There's some interesting information about all of this here: https://www.databentobox.com/2020/03/08/covid19_sim_tokyo/

There are bound to be challenges with this policy, especially for people who generally rely heavily on face-to-face communication with their colleagues. We will all need to take extra care to proactively communicate about our activity and needs. This is going to be a shared responsibility, but I believe we can do it.

Guidelines

  • Work from home each day, until further notice. The office is closed. Avoid public transit in your daily life.
  • Health officials and experts are recommending keeping a distance of at least 1 meter from others whenever possible.
  • Keep washing your hands, keep avoiding unnecessary face-touching. Keep being antisocial! ?

But what about...

There may be times (hopefully very few) when you feel it is essential for you to be in the office. Please address these cases with us via the approval form below, before coming in. When Lindsay has reviewed your request, she will notify you of her decision, and your time window. We will be trying to space out the visits to keep our distance from each other.

If you do receive approval, you're encouraged to take a personal vehicle if possible, Uber otherwise, and try very hard to avoid public transit.

Approval form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScpE6zOf1qIIHrRnLw2SSzaoanT_eJxVPIxffYgQEgghXK5gQ/viewform

As usual, Lindsay and I are available if you have questions, concerns, or feel like something in here doesn't make sense.

Thank you.

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