Learn from China – wear your mask at work
Three weeks ago, in the middle of March, a friend of mine from China sent me a message.
“The coronavirus situation is getting worse in Europe, hope you are well. Some experiences in Beijing for your information:
1. Stay at home as much as possible (only go out for food shopping)
2. DO wear a facemask when you go out
3. Don’t touch anything outside (or wear gloves)
4. When you come home after being outside, clean your overcoats surface with alcohol and put them on the balcony, then wash your hands. Wish you all the best! “
I shared this text to a number of friends and colleagues here in Europe, and, at this time, the response was split. Some agreed, but most replied in an ironic manner, somehow explaining that it was kind of cosmic and exaggerated what the guy from China recommended.
Meanwhile, with lockdowns in action in most countries in Europe, the first point of my friend’s advice is mostly being followed.
How about the others? When I called my friend in China last week, I learned that he had returned back to work after the factory was closed for almost 2 months. He works at a manufacturer of energy and power equipment.
Now see, what awaits you when you enter a factory in Beijing:
- Before they let you enter the site, they measure your temperature and they hand out a new mask and new gloves, which you must wear until noon.
- At noon, they come and measure your temperature again, and then give you a new mask and new gloves for the afternoon.
As you can see, China is nearly the only country in the world where they manage to keep the numbers of infections with COVID-19 nearly stable (provided that the official numbers are correct).
So, the question is: How long do we want to wait in Europe and the rest of the Western World, until we start adopting what obviously was successful?
I also observed that some people chose to fight against the measures by ignoring them, especially those whose businesses are negatively affected by COVID-19. It should not be happening, and so everyone who talks about protection and so on is a loser in their eyes. I would like to tell them: The more you care about protection now, the fewer people you bring in danger, the faster the crisis will be over and the sooner your business will return back to normal.
Some hope though: One of my friends replied to my message from three weeks ago with an image. He is wearing a self-made mask from fabric, showing the colours and the logo of his favourite football team.
Yours,
Frank Mortensen
Publisher of powertransformernews.com
Image from Christo Anestev / Pixabay
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