Today is #LongCOVIDAwarenessDay. According to the CDC, ~7% of Americans have experienced long COVID – that's ~17.6 million people. There are more people in the US with long COVID than there are with red hair.
However, many event organizers think there are so few people impacted that they don't need to implement Health & Safety measures.
If you consider the cycle of inaccessibility, you have to wonder... how much of that is self-fulfilling prophecy?
As a community or an event organiser you have a duty of care to your community, to your attendees.
Even if you are a volunteer. I've no time for the argument of "well it's too much to expect of a volunteer. " I've helped to run fencing competitions, unpaid as a volunteer. I had a duty of care then. You have it now if you are organising a community space.
If you can't acknowledge that responsibility you have no business running an event.
A trend I'm seeing with conferences is that "masks are recommended, but not required".
Of course, you'd expect that the organisers making that recommendation would set an example by doing the thing they are so "strongly recommending". Unfortunately, this rarely seems to be the case.
Do parents "strongly recommend" their children wear seatbelts while sitting in the same car without wearing theirs?
Such people make neither good parents nor event organisers.
@austriancoder@linuxplumbersconf Hi I'm pleased to see you have an anti harassment policy. Do you also have a Public health policy?
@phpledge does have some guidance if you haven't formulated one.
It would be handy to know at this early stage if those of us who have to take precautions for our health if we can go. There are some conferences in the US that have these health policies as does EMF camp.
If you’re going to #37c3 please be considerate of the people around the event space and wear a mask.
There are doctors’ offices.
There are people who need to be on trains and busses.
There are people who work in the cafes and restaurants.
You’re at an event notorious for being a superspreader event, even before the pandemic.
COVID is not over. Wear a mask.
@akareilly it'd be nice if more open source maintainers and leaders considered committing to always wearing a mask at the events they attend.
Normalise wearing them. We pride ourselves on being the more open choice, but it's pointless if we leave some of the community behind.
Frankly I wish more of our leaders signed the #publichealthpledge . Show that you care about those of us in Open Source who can't afford to get sick or even more damaged by infection.
@FOSSBackstage I would have considered it, but unfortunately you dropped your masking requirement so that excludes me from participation along with anyone else who cares about their long term health.
If an event's Health & Safety policy boils down to only requiring what authorities require, and it doesn't involve masking, testing, vaccines, or serious efforts to address indoor air quality and ventilation ... then the event is out of step with the Public Health Pledge.
We are here to raise the bar, together, one event at a time.
Sometimes that means making sacrifices, or having uncomfortable conversations. This is to be expected.
Every time you see an event that lets you down on Health and Safety, look for an event that hits the mark. Then, celebrate them publicly!
There are so many good examples leading the way here. Shining a spotlight on them provides positive reinforcement and illuminates the path forward for events that have work to do.
We'll link to some good examples in the replies. 🧵
#Monktoberfest may not mandate masking, but they've been thoughtful about ventilation and vaccines ... and then there's this!
I feel good about one way masking as a high risk person given all the other work they've put in.
Of note, when GitHub Universe did the rug pull on COVID precautions last year, it was Monktoberfest's written promise to not relax protections after they're announced that inspired a key part of the @phpledge.
When you hear there's going to be a conference you're excited about, but you don't know yet whether it will have a strong health policy to allow you to attend.
Lately I've been feeling like a kid at Christmas, opening one present after another to find each box empty. I suppose I should be thankful there isn't a dead cat.
We're delighted to announce that @everythingopen#EverythingOpen, Australia's grassroots open source community conference, is being hosted in the beautiful #Gladstone, led by long-time community contributor @xrobau
📅 April 16-18 2024
📍Gladstone, Queensland, Australia
#CfP will open 14 October 2023. Start thinking about what you would like to talk about, or see.
@everythingopen@xrobau Please adopt a stronger health policy with mandatory masking to protect attendees, ensuring attendance is open to all.
Many of your potential attendees and speakers (including former keynotes from Linux.conf.au) signed the @phpledge because we care about our long term health.
Don't just "strongly encourage" masks. Require them.
We don't just "strongly encourage" people not to engage in CoC banned behaviour. We require and enforce.
We hope that they add masking to their policy, but the bottom line for now is that they have a policy and they've committed to not weakening it between now and the event.
That is head and shoulders above the status quo of events that act like it's still 2019.