Basically my company is only starting to consider the possibility of eventually having the thoughts of working from home... Based in London and things could easily escalate here to the same situation as Italy. Should I simply not come from next week and WFH regardless of what they say or be a patient lamb?
You're obviously concerned so you might not like my (very subjective) advice.<p>If the official recommendation is that each company decides on their own, then there is not much you can do and you'll have to follow the company guideline. If the company insists on not doing anything, then their leadership is dangerously irrational. In that case, I'd seriously consider looking for another job now rather than waiting until the economic crisis hits. (It will likely hit hard, world-wide.)<p>If you're asking about the personal risk of going to the company versus staying at home, that cannot be answered in general. Are you going with public transport/the tube? That's a very high infection risk. Otherwise, going there and working there might not be a high risk, depending on the office layout and facilities for sanitizing. Does the building have air conditioning? That's probably a very high risk. How old are you? The younger, the less of a personal risk you have.<p>Without more information, it's impossible to judge or even attempt to quantify the personal risk.
Unless it's a very small company, or you're very senior, you possibly just aren't aware what the company is considering.<p>I'm reasonably senior in a large global company (I'm based in the UK) and what we are doing, versus what we are officially allowed to say that we are doing, differ pretty widely.<p>We are also, largely, asking most folk to keep working as usual unless there are specific reasons not too. And we are tracking all those decisions centrally.<p>And, although I disagree with some of what we are doing, most of it is for very good reason. We have a duty of care, both legally and morally, and, as with the government, public safety sometimes clashes with individual wishes.<p>Having said that, I'd be pretty surprised if we get through next week without a much larger contingent working from home, but there's an awful lot of wood to chop before that will occur.
The UK has 500+ confirmed cases. It’s safe to assume the virus is widespread in the population. You’ll have the same numbers as Italy in a few weeks. There is no way to avoid that outcome.