Return-to-work plans are on ice after COVID-19 spike
05 August 2021
Even more "back-to-office" callbacks are being postponed amid a surge in COVID-19 infections.
Why it matters: It feels like March 13, 2020, all over again. When businesses sent all their workers home, it was an early big hint the pandemic was going to upend our lives.
- Now all the botched return-to-work plans are telling us that the Delta variant could send us back into the thick of the pandemic.
What's new:Amazon's offices were set to reopen in September. Thanks to coronavirus concerns, Thursday the company moved that to January 2022. (For corporate employees, that is — warehouse workers basically never left.)
- BlackRock and Wells Fargo now plan to reopen offices in October instead — one month later than planned.
- It comes after others — including Apple and Google — recently pushed back back-to-office returns.
What to watch: The glare is turning to those that already forged ahead with reopening and now have to juggle the pandemic setback, i.e., some of the big banks whose CEOs have been adamant about returning to work.
- Goldman Sachs is monitoring guidance from the CDC and local health authorities, along with its own workplace health experts, a spokesperson says.
- Goldman employees are required to report whether they are vaccinated or not. If they are unvaccinated, they have to be tested weekly.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.