The mutated Covid-19 virus is on the march again as employers cajole and threaten their workers back to the office.
The highly mutated new subvariant JN.1 is driving a worldwide spike in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
Many of the precautions we used to embrace — masking, testing and isolating, vaccination — have been abandoned by those who think the danger has passed, including employers.
COVID has decreased life expectancy, will cost the global economy an estimated $US13.8 trillion by 2024, and is decimating the lives of millions of people who have developed long COVID.
Do employers care? They do not.
COVID-19 can cause serious illness affecting every organ system in the body, even in vaccinated people with seemingly mild infections.
It can cause cognitive decline, trigger immune damage and dysfunction, impair liver, kidney and lung functionand significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Then there’s long COVID, a debilitating disease that robs fit and high-functioning people of their ability to think, work and exercise.
Do employers care? They do not.