Last week, around May 14 2025, word broke of Covid-19 numbers on the rise in Southeast Asia. It told observers what most knew: the five-year-old pandemic wasn’t just still underway, it was about to get worse and it promised a new ride.

While countries in the West had stopped collecting reliable Covid case data over the past three years, we heard that Thailand had 17,000 current cases, Singapore 14,200, and that these results reflected increases in the thousands over the week prior.

Then came China. It was eerily silent, claiming only a “slight uptick” in cases but that Covid had “overtaken rhinovirus” there in infections.

In the business world, news also broke of a major Australian bank calling on its workers to return to the office three days a week, up from two. Headlines ran that massive resignations would follow as unions insisted that workers were loathe to take on the added cost of transport and parking, and that working from home had become a life balance.

Indeed, during the federal election, some weeks prior to that, without warning the conservative Coalition told the electorate that it would end work from home in the public sector if it won. It took days for it to reverse itself owing to the furore.

And it lost that election to the Labor Party—that instead insisted that working from home was a feature of modern business, a right, and a sign of business innovation “in the 21st Century”. Pundits argue that this Conservative policy handed an unlosable election to Labor on a platter.

The irony of it all though, is that just before Covid-19 hit, businesses including the big banks were boasting of layoffs and property downsizing in order to move their customers online and cut costs.

Well, yesterday Thailand reported 33,000 Covid cases. A doubling of last week.

New York and Los Angeles reported noticeable surges, and then came the big news.

China said that it was suddenly in a Covid “epidemic” and its hospitals were overwhelmed. When China goes quiet the world should worry.

In other words, the lies behind the call to return to the office—that the pandemic was over and that “living with Covid” was good—were exposed again. And Australia is next in line in this crisis.

So, business leaders need answers to the following today:

  1. Are your workplaces well-ventilated and their air filtered?
  2. Are your work areas well-spaced per employee?
  3. Are you willing to reintroduce on-site masking?
  4. Are your workers up-to-date with their Covid vaccines?
  5. Why aren’t your managers able to lead offsite workforces?
  6. Are your Human Resources policies prepared?
  7. Do you really need to accept the risk of Covid spreading in your workplaces?

If your answers are “no” or uncertain to any, risk management suggests a pending hit to your costs, reliability and productivity. If you’re reliant on “Just in Time” in any production flows, your risks are higher.

Worse yet, the latest strains of Covid with an infection window two days prior to symptoms and three days after, are hitting Gen Z and Gen Y.

This means that now is not the time to play games in support of a CBD property sector that for five years has failed to diversify its portfolio beyond the office tenant, nor for CBD small businesses that have failed to adapt to the realities of work from home.

The big question, is how ready is Australia’s new Labor government’s Department of Health to meet this new Covid outbreak?

We’re hearing nothing from it, and we know that Novavax vaccines available worldwide are still not on the shelves locally as a powerful alternative to the lesser lasting mRNA Pfizer option.

In commerce, we’re back to 2020. Too many bad decision makers are running wild in the Australian economy. It’s up to you.

© 2025 Adam Parker.

Picture credit: India TV headline, May 19 2025. India TV offered a solid live feed during India’s 2021 oxygen shortage when the country’s hospitals suffered a devastating Covid-19 impact. © 2025 Independent News Service.