Although we have largely moved on, the virus has not. Boston wastewater suggests that COVID cases will increase over the next several weeks. During these same weeks, employers are urging employees to return to the office, to travel, to attend conferences, and to attend in person meals with colleagues and clients. This is the return to normal we have hoped for / anticipated / or dreaded for a long time. The timing, however, may be a recipe for a return to precisely the circumstances we hoped were firmly in the rear-view mirror.

I am not a virologist; I am an employment lawyer. Why then am I urging people to take note? Because employers will need to react. They will either face lots of absence caused by illness or spread of the virus within the office. And, with the specter of Long COVID, they risk losing employees for more than the two weeks or so it typically takes for people to recover.

In the absence of strict governmental guidance -- I urge employers to watch the sewer data and to be prepared to take action (mask requirements / staggered schedules / HEPA filters) again. We may not need to respond with the same urgency we did over the past two years, but we are going to have to be ready to move if the virus returns with vigor.