When are you willing to hire again?

[+ Pensant]

I saw a regular the first half of March. So far, so good for both of us. I, too, suspect I may have had it in January, since I had most of the symptoms for weeks, and I rarely get sick. I’m going to get the antibody test in any event. As to when I rehire, perhaps late summer? Who knows?

[former lurker]

Well glad to see you have apparently recovered, whatever the illness may have been.

I have seasonal allergies and scratchy throat with bananas and tomatoes on rare occasions.

I have you beat though on being allergic to the most inescapable thing of all, especially in Vegas: the sun!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109193/

 

Ouch! I'm easily burnt, but have never been diagnosed as allergic to the sun. But I'm allergic to anything it makes grow. I guess good sun block is a staple of your daily routine.

[big-n-tall]

Well glad to see you have apparently recovered, whatever the illness may have been.

I have seasonal allergies and scratchy throat with bananas and tomatoes on rare occasions.

I have you beat though on being allergic to the most inescapable thing of all, especially in Vegas: the sun!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109193/

 

I am also allergic to sunlight but have a different reaction (hives). I always carry ultra-high SPF sunscreen especially visiting sunny places.

 

Back to the main topic... probably when there is a vaccine or maybe some type of med (maybe remdesivir if it gets approved) that helps mitigates the worse symptoms.

[+ keroscenefire]

 

Good/bad news. I actually would have felt better knowing I was developing/developed an immunity.

 

Do you think you're going to wait to start up again until you get sick and develop antibodies? Or is that part of the decision maybe?

[+ Axiom2001]

It's a question I don't have an answer to yet. I think we're a long away from a "no risk" scenario. So, it depends then how the science unfolds. Would you connect with someone tested negative a day ago? a week ago? a month ago? Do a point-of-care test "on the spot"? We're a long way away from having that kind of testing available to us. Stay tuned.....

 

...completely concur. It will definitely be a while for me to begin "playing" again!

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Do you think you're going to wait to start up again until you get sick and develop antibodies? Or is that part of the decision maybe?

 

Good question... And one I can't easily answer at the moment.

 

I have a handful of clients who have been or are in the process of getting tested. I suppose I could always keep it to a very tight circle for the time being, but I hate the thought of anything exclusionary. It's against my basic nature.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I came down with a pretty bad illness in March that even my primary care physician suspected was COVID. Unfortunately they weren't testing then unless you basically were in the hospital with critical symptoms. They just started doing antibody testing at one site in Denver for $100 a pop. Unfortunately, they already booked up the appointments for the next two weeks before I could get one. I definitely would like to see if I was exposed and possibly have some level of immunity to the illness.

 

The big issue now is that the WHO stated that it's possible to reinfect.

 

This seems to put a dent in herd immunity for the time being.

[Andy2]

I agree with Ben. Watchful waiting. Let's see what the scientists find out, and whether they can come up with a vaccine and/or treatment. IMHO, those of us who are cautious have a long wait.

 

So, Ben, what would your medium term plan be? Virtual escorting? Live off your savings?

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

So, Ben, what would your medium term plan be? Virtual escorting? Live off your savings?

 

Virtual? Negative. What I do well, I do well in-person.

 

Live off the bank awhile. Bum around Texas. Currently on the coast for the last month or so.

[+ newatthis]

What I can't get my mind around is this. We suspect (see recent stories about random testing in California and New York, for example) that there are many asymptomatic carriers out there. We don't know how long immunity lasts for someone who has had the disease. And I have to assume any escort I hire has other clients, some of whom may be infected and asymptomatic. So no matter how much I trust a particular escort, at this point there's no assurance (other than our having been isolated for > 14 days?) that one of us not infectious.

 

I know people who have had this. Even though none of them was hospitalized, their experiences were worse than the worst flu I've ever had.

 

All those things put together are likely to greatly suppress my libido in any real (as opposed to fantasy) encounter.

[DMICS]

Probably won't be until 2021. Definitely not this year. Though I do admit I've thought about recently doing it with one local provider.

[musclesformeplease]

I read some may hire their regulars bc you trust them. Ok. But how can you trust whomever they've been with?

[+ keroscenefire]

The big issue now is that the WHO stated that it's possible to reinfect.

 

This seems to put a dent in herd immunity for the time being.

 

I think the WHO is cautioning that we don't know enough about COVID-19 to say whether reinfection is possible. They also are a bit skeptical of the antibody tests that are currently out because many have pretty high error rates. But actually I think a lot of scientists are saying reinfection is probably unlikely at least for most who have recovered and for a certain amount of time. This Vox explainer I thought did a good job of laying it out.

 

I think as we start to understand more about COVID-19, we will have better antibody tests and a better understanding about how they protect against the virus. I feel like we're kinda in the early ages of when HIV first broke out, but maybe in a better position because COVID-19 effects everyone, not just those at the margins of society that can easily be ignored like gay men and drug users.

[+ dauterman]

The original question is "when will you hire again". The short answer is: not for a long time.

 

I work in a municipality that is heavily tourism dependent. Tourism has been crushed and there are heavy economic losses here. It will not come back anytime soon. So far my employer is doing OK, I still have a job, but I am worried about all the economic ramifications of the pandemic. I am worried about getting laid off later this year. I am cutting all unnecessary expenses, and saving every penny I can as a "rainy day fund" in case I get laid off.

 

I do NOT think the US economy will have a V-shaped recovery. I think the recovery will be long, slow and grinding. I am guessing that there are many more people like me, who will either choose or be forced to cut all discretionary spending.

 

Is there anyone else in my predicament? I assume there must be large numbers of other people who will NOT hire until the economy comes back and there is more job security.

[liubit]

When will I hire again? Perhaps after the escort and I share a tall glass of Lysol, as per recent advice ????

[+ Steve yabsley]

I guess you can save up.....and then hire someone for 15 days......14 days of mutual co-isolation, and one day up pent-up, make-up-for-lost-time, wild and crazy non-stop fucking.....

[sutherland]

Is there anyone else in my predicament? I assume there must be large numbers of other people who will NOT hire until the economy comes back and there is more job security.

 

I am in the same predicament. Hiring an escort, for me at least, is entertainment like an evening at the theater - not necessary and only done during good economic times. I suspect some of the posters on this web site are retired and getting social security as well as pensions from their former employers. THEY are lucky during these tough times.

[xyz48B]

Regarding the WHO on antibodies – While, yes, there’s no conclusive evidence that antibodies confer immunity, there’s no conclusive evidence to suggest you can get reinfected either. Watching South Korean doctors speak on this, they believe more strongly in the idea that relapse, not reinfection (two different but distinct categories in virology), is the likelier cause for the instances of folks turning up with resurgence of symptoms after testing negative. The tests can only detect the viral load at a certain level. Under that, the virus can still be present, but not register on the test. Thus producing a negative result.

 

In the case of antibodies, we are assuming, as we do for almost every other disease out there, that some level of immunity is conferred from exposure. That’s the whole premise of a vaccine – confer immunity of some degree by artificially introducing the antibody-producing components of the virus to the host. If antibody immunity is off the table, the silver bullet vaccine won’t work either. Fauci has said that it’s not highly unlikely, given this is a coronavirus, that some sort of durable – perhaps not life-long, but durable – immunity is conferred. It’s really a matter of when it kicks in and for how long.

 

So, the headlines that have been swirling about this “news” are likely misleading, create unnecessary panic, and drive up clicks.

 

Regarding the OP in general – I have long said, I want all these measures to be data driven. I expect that when we relax some, at first, we’ll see upticks. The question is how our behavioral changes will affect future data and likewise future behavioral changes. But again, I say, all changes should be data driven – not fear or anger driven. There’s a lot of reactivity around anger and fear right now...

[former lurker]

Regarding the WHO on antibodies – While, yes, there’s no conclusive evidence that antibodies confer immunity, there’s no conclusive evidence to suggest you can get reinfected either. Watching South Korean doctors speak on this, they believe more strongly in the idea that relapse, not reinfection (two different but distinct categories in virology), is the likelier cause for the instances of folks turning up with resurgence of symptoms after testing negative. The tests can only detect the viral load at a certain level. Under that, the virus can still be present, but not register on the test. Thus producing a negative result.

 

In the case of antibodies, we are assuming, as we do for almost every other disease out there, that some level of immunity is conferred from exposure. That’s the whole premise of a vaccine – confer immunity of some degree by artificially introducing the antibody-producing components of the virus to the host. If antibody immunity is off the table, the silver bullet vaccine won’t work either. Fauci has said that it’s not highly unlikely, given this is a coronavirus, that some sort of durable – perhaps not life-long, but durable – immunity is conferred. It’s really a matter of when it kicks in and for how long.

 

So, the headlines that have been swirling about this “news” are likely misleading, create unnecessary panic, and drive up clicks.

 

Regarding the OP in general – I have long said, I want all these measures to be data driven. I expect that when we relax some, at first, we’ll see upticks. The question is how our behavioral changes will affect future data and likewise future behavioral changes. But again, I say, all changes should be data driven – not fear or anger driven. There’s a lot of reactivity around anger and fear right now...

 

The current concern is the absence of reliable data. What should we do before it is available? For now, it seems to me, the risks of underestimating the risks of relapse and/or reinfection are more harmful than the risks of overestimating them. As we gain reliable data, we will need to adjust our approach. There is a lot of armchair science going on. Whether and to what extent we can rely on experience with other diseases to analogize the role of antibodies is one important area where we lack sufficient data.

[+ Snbrd]

I guess you can save up.....and then hire someone for 15 days......14 days of mutual co-isolation, and one day up pent-up, make-up-for-lost-time, wild and crazy non-stop fucking.....

I think Steve yabsley makes the point about our reticence to hire, the 14 day incubation period. If we hire someone aren't we at risk that anyone he came in contact with in the previous 14 days puts us at risk?

[+ newatthis]

When will I hire again? Perhaps after the escort and I share a tall glass of Lysol, as per recent advice ????

You'd better get right to it after imbibing...

[+ keroscenefire]

 

Is there anyone else in my predicament? I assume there must be large numbers of other people who will NOT hire until the economy comes back and there is more job security.

 

I work for a school district and while I believe I should have a job for at least the next school year, after that I am not so sure. The district is already projecting a $30-60 million dollar deficit for the next school year and while they said they can use their "rainy-day fund" and do things like hiring freezes, they may only be able to staunch the bleeding for a while. I don't want to be too political, but this is why it's really important that the federal government help state and local governments during this time. Local governments usually don't have job losses immediately after an economic crisis, but develop them a year or two later once tax revenues plummet. The exact same thing happened in 2010 as millions of people lost their state and local jobs causing the recession to go on for even longer. Hopefully we don't make the same mistake again.

[down_to_business]

Please keep it non-political but if government does decide to go the state bankruptcy route they have talked about, those people on pensions (i.e. retired teachers, government workers, peace officers, firefighters etc.) will be in a world of hurt too. That is a whole lot more people who will not be able to hire so easily.

[+ Axiom2001]

I would hire if I knew the escort has been in quarantine. ...

 

...I'm guessing August? September? This summer is fucked but at least we'll save money. LOL

 

I'm with you. Unfortunately, far too many guys in San Francisco who are on my "Buddylist" at Rentmen are still apparently out there.

 

When I have gone to the site and clicked on it

out of curiosity, there is apparently still too much action transpiring with many of them during these crucial and very serious times.

 

One of my very, very favorite guys whom I've seen over the past 3 or so years is still out there. I am saddened and find that I will be reluctant to see him in the future, for although he is "hot," he is NOT a "man of steel" or completely immune to pandemics and the like.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Axiom2001

[+ DrownedBoy]

I'm willing to hire once the legal lock down in my state is lifted, so not until June. However, like others mentioned, there are uncertain economic times.

 

My firm claims there's no layoffs coming, nor were there any back in 2008, but the current financial mess has no precedent unless you go back to 1929. It will take years to get back to normal, if it ever does.

 

So I'll also be cutting back and saving money like crazy. I imagine I'll meet with a trusted regular when the lock down ends (I'm a lot younger than most clients and am at very low risk of getting seriously ill), but I'm not going crazy or spending as much as before. We have a long recession in front of us. If we're lucky.