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I don’t have a firm reason why it works for us as a crew, so I can only speculate-but it does and has worked for several years. My guess is that it is a combo of a lot of things.

As site/project manager, I’m responsible for job safety and injury prevention, I do not allow anyone with any cough/sneeze on my jobsite-I expect everyone to have hand sanitizer in their truck and use it. No one shakes customers’ hands, either-the customers don’t mind that at all.

No one has been on this crew for less than 5 years, or lives more than 14-15 miles away-which puts us all in the same small area in which there are no towns-nearest one is 18 miles away and tiny-800 people, small independent grocery store, no big box, etc-a village. There are a couple of gas stations out here, a general store, a hardware store, 2 restaurants-and a post office within 12 miles. This place is mostly a collection of old hippies, rednecks, hermits-mostly preppers/off griders who are somewhat clannish. Herbal cures that aren’t in someone’s greenhouse are available online-most people don’t trust or use drugs, for various reasons-I’m one of those.

Unfortunately, like any remote area, there is usually a meth cooker/dealer living quietly on my road or another one, but their customers come from the city over 40 miles away-that is how they get busted-strange activity and vehicles on a regular basis at the same place gets noticed.

This is a tourist trap in summer, but it is totally deserted in winter- the closest thing to tourists/transients here at this time of year are the snowbirds staying in the cabins and RV spaces for the winter-they’ve been here since early-mid November and will leave in late March.

Most kids out here are not in public school-they’re homeschooled or at the tiny local Christian school-I don’t know if the isolation and absence of strangers in winter, the prevalence of a tougher more natural lifestyle etc have anything to do with immunity or whatever-it is anyone’s guess...

“I do not allow anyone with any cough/sneeze on my jobsite-I expect everyone to have hand sanitizer in their truck and use it.”

That right there probably explains why it works. At my work they can’t force people to take a sick day. The supervisor was railing last week about anyone being sick needing to stay home. “I”m not fkn playing around!” Well, the next day someone came in sick. Three days later the supervisor was out sick and was out this week. He’d call his 2nd supervisor on the speaker phone and rail against the worker who spread the sickness. The culprit is an older gentleman who is in his 5th year of Leukemia recovery so no one’s gonna go hard on him on getting sick because it could be a sign of relapse. This is the big year for him. After this he’s free and clear of relapse.