Banking corporation HSBC has reintroduced daily testing and masks in its New York office after a rise in reported U.S. Covid infections, in an ominous sign that many people have no intention of leaving the ’emergency’ Covid measures behind. Here’s the Telegraph:
Major companies are eyeing new measures to stop the spread of the virus at workplaces. At the end of last month, an average of 110,000 Covid cases had been reported each day in the U.S., according to a New York Times database, while hospitalisations were up 29% to around 26,100 per day.
As a result of the rising cases, sources said HSBC has now asked its New York-based staff to put their masks back on and conduct daily tests, a decision which one source said coincided with a visit from senior management last week.
A HSBC insider said the bank “adjusted precautions on the back of an increase in Covid cases” and the guidance “remains in place as numbers are still high”.
Fresh concerns about rising cases come at an awkward time for Wall Street bank bosses, who have been urging people to get back to work for months as figures show that just 40% of office staff in the city have returned.
The Telegraph feverishly reports the news under the heading “HSBC brings back masks and daily testing as U.S. cases soar“.
Soar, really? Here are the latest U.S. infection data.
No soaring there. The latest ripple looks already to be petering out. Why do newspapers, even now, spread unnecessary alarm about Covid?
What about New York? The same picture – nothing of consequence, just a ripple of summer sniffles.
If these are the conditions under which employers are going to resort to making serious impositions on personal liberty – requiring prolonged wearing of unhygienic face coverings and medical interventions in the form of diagnostic tests – then it’s hard to see how the world will ever move on from the Covid hysteria.
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