NRAO/GBO update - Thu Oct 22nd
The North American NRAO/GBO instruments and support systems are online and performing nominally. In Chile, the JAO has begun significant work both in the Santiago offices and at the OSF, with a planned return to science observing early next year.
We continue to deal with a small number of COVID-19 cases from week to week, mainly arising from contact with infected family members/friends (not lateral spread in the NRAO/GBO workplaces). The regional and national situations are troubling … steady increases in the number of daily infections seen, and some fairly serious predictions for the next few months made, e.g. https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=infections-testing&tab=trend&test=infections
Your responsibility is to protect yourselves and your families/coworkers - physical distancing, the use of masks at all times in public, and enhanced personal hygiene (hand washing) remain important. Avoid large gatherings, particularly indoors, and events where mask wearing is optional or lax – unfortunately, this can include large family gatherings. As we get deeper into cold & flu season, there are going to be many hard-to-interpret illness situations, so please get your flu shots. Note, travel quarantines are already back in certain cities/states, and will come and go in many places for the next few months (my guess). Widespread vaccination as a solution to the situation seems a long way off (summer or fall 2021?) so we need to follow the preventative measures closely.
Observatory life: Q4 2020 is filled with planning and reporting activities (explaining to the NSF and the community – what did we do this year, and what we are planning to do next year). The largest change from my point of view has been the shift from ~5% to 65% teleworking, and the altered use of our facilities (some buildings/areas being used normally, others somewhat deserted). There are losses and gains to our mission from all these changes, and we’re still learning how to operate in this mode. It doesn’t seem likely we’ll be moving to Phase 2 (restarting major occupation of the buildings, business travel, visitors to our sites, many-persons-in-a-room meetings) in December. For now, we’re stable and getting the job done. If you have suggestions on how to improve our work or safety practices, please let your local supervisor or safety team member know. All ideas will be considered.
You may have noticed - there is an election coming up on November 3rd. I urge everyone to participate, and coordinate soon with your supervisors regarding time out of the office on the day, if needed. Also: please take some vacation in the coming months… time away from work to refresh/renew is important for all of us, even if travel is difficult. Continue your efforts in the Performance Evaluation process, and complete your annual cybersecurity trainings soon – many thanks.
If you need COVID information or support, please contact your supervisor, Dept Head, ESS or me. The website containing all our info is: https://info.nrao.edu/covid-19. Take care of yourselves, and stay safe.
Tony Beasley
