Re: [admin-discuss] Suggestion for COVID management at future meetings

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 8/30/22 13:46, John Levine wrote:

>> I’ve had an offlist suggestion for a different COVID management policy for future IETF meetings (i.e. 116 and
>> possibly after that), which is that we ask all onsite participants to take a rapid antigen test each morning and
>> confirm that is clear before participating and then masks are optional and there is no vaccination requirement.
>> It would be useful to hear what people think of that.
> That would be a poor idea. Rapid tests are useful tools but as we all
> know, they are not infallible and it is quite possible to have COVID
> for a while before testing positive.
>
> Universal masking slows down transmission in both directions, limiting
> the amount of virus that an infected person exhales, and also limiting
> what uninfected people inhale. Masking at 114 seems to have worked
> quite well. As I understand it the number of people who got COVID at
> the meeting, as opposed to getting it on the way to the meeting, was
> very low.
>
> Wearing masks is not particularly pleasant, and it is a pain for some
> of us to find masks that fit (the free ones at 114 were too small for
> me) but we know how to do it, and it's cheap.

+1

At this point we have no idea how effective either rapid tests or 
vaccination are at limiting the spread of current (or future) variants 
of COVID, but masks (if required universally) are likely to continue to 
be effective.

(Though in a way it hardly matters what IETF does at its meetings, if 
remains infeasible to travel safely to and from IETF meetings without 
significant risk of exposure.   As long as airlines and airports are no 
longer requiring masking, I'm unlikely to travel to any IETF meeting 
that I cannot drive to. And IMO IETF should not be having face to face 
meetings under those conditions.)

Keith