Re: [Ietf108planning] Assessment criteria for decision on in-person/virtual IETF 108

[Larry Masinter <[e-mail]>]

I find it hard to believe that time is being wasted on this gruesome and pointless speculation.

 

Resuming economic activity will proceed gradually. Some businesses, some meetings.

There are many economic and political reasons (beyond probability 

estimates of fatality and individualized risk-assessment) why large international 

conferences will be one of the last pre-virus activities to resume.

 

And the IETF engineers who need a face-to-face meeting because they can’t figure out how to make it work online?

Should the IETF be the first large international meeting after virus? 

 

From: ietf <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Jay Daley
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2020 2:44 PM
To: Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Assessment criteria for decision on in-person/virtual IETF 108

 

Mike

On 18/04/2020, at 9:35 AM, Michael StJohns <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> > wrote:

 

Jay/Stewart - 

 

A piece of the puzzle may be the availability and cost of medical travel insurance.   For grins I just priced the cost of insurance based on having the November IETF either in London or Bangkok and it came out about $60 for either of those destinations.    The benefit included things like a $1M coverage of medical evacuations and a $150K non-medical evacuation.

 

Adding to the list of criteria Jay posted earlier - maybe "Availability of affordable medical insurance with no exclusions for the destination including any related to Covid-19"?

 

That was raised during our internal discussions and we rejected the idea as it is too difficult to assess the cost for people travelling from all of the countries that participants come from.  Let me know if you can see a way around that. 

 

Jay

 

-- 

Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director

 

Later, Mike

 

On 4/17/2020 5:22 PM, Jay Daley wrote:

Stewart 

 

On 18/04/2020, at 1:31 AM, Stewart Bryant  <mailto:[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> wrote:

Jay

Whilst I understand that the focus is on IETF108, this dreadful illness is likely to be with us until there is a reliable vaccine widely available. So even it it is under control there will likely be a reservoir of infection for a while and a risk that an IETF participant will fall ill with it during a meeting. 

That means that we have to consider not only what happens with IETF109 in terms of virtual/F2F but also, if it is F2F whether the medical resources in Bangkok are such that attendees would be comfortable with the quality and quantity of available care and treatment in that city should they be struck by the covid infection during the meeting.

 

Some independent sources rank the Thailand healthcare system very highly https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1746289/thailands-healthcare-ranked-sixth-best-in-the-world

 

I am not sure which is the best venue from that point of view, but serious consideration should be given to moving the meeting to a place where a significant majority are happy with the medical facilities.

 

As I hope is clear by now, I prefer objective data over subjective views wherever possible as the latter are swayed so much by emotion and information gaps. For example, I am deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of requiring medical treatment while in the US and needing to navigate what appears to me from my barely informed position to be an utterly bizarre system, but that doesn’t change the objective likelihood that I would get excellent treatment. 

 

Jay

-- 

Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director

 

Best regards

Stewart