There’s still a whole lot of space between shutting down and living like it’s 2019. If people would just wear a damn mask if feeling under the weather that would be amazing. Half my office got covid the week before Christmas because people would come in and hack up a lung for 9 hours at their desk and then mysteriously the people around them would start coughing into the air the next day.

With that, can we incentivize work from home for the industries that can do that? It’ll reduce spread in offices and even in schools if we let parents who can WFH stay home with sick kids rather than send them in to school. And while it feels unfair to those who can’t WFH, it’s still a net benefit since their kids will get exposed to fewer germs.

Also, and I know I’m dreaming here, requiring retail and restaurants to have paid sick leave rather than forcing their workers to come in sick.

That’s just the start, along with longer-term stuff like better air filtration in public spaces, better preventative health, alternatives for parents with sick kids, and more. But honestly if we could just normalize masking when not feeling great, that would have a huge impact on transmission.