Increasingly Covid-19 is like car accidents, cancer, and the flu. It's an important risk that should be managed. We want to do the things that make sense, bypass the rituals that don't, and choose how far on the spectrum we want to go of risk-aversion versus having some fun.

As community leaders, it's important to be careful to let people speak, but to not get swept up in it ourselves. Any time we feel a strong urge to go stick it to someone, we should remember that everyone else is already thinking it, anyway. It's very destabilizing to push a pendulum extremely hard the opposite way it's currently moving, because a pendulum naturally always has forces pulling it back toward its center. To keep our dances coherent, it is best we dampen these forces rather than add more energy into an already excitable system. I'll say no more on that aspect.

In the more objective part of the problem before us, several factors are changing, and Covid is much more manageable than it used to be. Immunity is widespread, in part because so very many people have simply caught the disease. The U.S. is now just shy of 100M cumulative reported cases; some of these are repeats, but that's more than a fourth of the registered population. About 80% have had at least one vaccine shot, and IIUC, that's 80% of the whole population, not 80% of the eligible population. Treatment is better than ever, including drugs, methods, and hospital bandwidth. Eradication is at this time impossible; the ship has sailed. We've been above 200 cases/day for over a year, and there's no reason to believe eradication is an achievable goal. I'm giving broad strokes here; please, organizers, consider your own key metrics and check on how they are doing today, if you haven't in a while.

Finally, while dance leaders are community leaders, and thus pivotal for public health, there's also an element of letting people choose what makes sense for them. If every institution spends all its time working on public health, then cumulatively all that humanity will do is to work on public health--a pretty sterile existence for us all to look forward to! Within the bounds of reasonable public health guidance, as exemplified by the CDC web site, it can be good to focus on what is special about the organizations this list is about: how to accommodate the most number of people possible having a good experience with dancing, for all the aspects of "good experience" including health as just one of them. Contra dance is, without exaggeration, an incredible institution for giving people a reason to really live, rather than just to exist. It's an important role.

The dances I see opening up are generally taking this approach nowadays. While I haven't specifically been to a contra dance since the lockdowns, I've been to 3-4 other Atlanta dances and to one dance in San Francisco. I often see instructors, bartenders, and other key staff wearing masks--the people who are in the face of >100 customers over the course of the night. I'm not sure that would apply to a contra dance caller, since they're usually on stage, except during the lesson portion at the beginning.  Also, I'm seeing a lot of posted vaccination policies, but I don't remember seeing the policy enforced beyond the honor system. The policies insist on vaccination, and will sometimes allow same-day testing--the same things I'm seeing on this thread so far. People are strongly encouraged to stay out of the dance if sick, without any clarification of what "sick" means.

Dancing with a mask really does go fine. I've been surprised. I still usually don't wear one, because the ones I have hurt my ears, and because I'm less verbal than most and rely more than most on facial expressions. I draw exceptions and wear a mask, though, if someone close to me is about to receive an intensive medical treatment, or if they're about to visit an immunocompromised relative. I give these as examples of how personal an effective choice about Covid-19 can be.  Unlike when the pandemic started, when a simple "no, are you crazy?" was a sufficient way to evaluate the parameters, in today's environment, the aspects are nuanced and personal. I daresay, the strongest possible contribution that a dance organizers can make right now is to help people make these decisions effectively, while avoiding the wild seesaw of posturing-based decisions.

I would wish for contra dances to follow the same general approach as these other dances that are opening up. We can think of it similar to flexible donation amounts, or to instructions about personal space. We give dancers a framework for thinking about it, and then trust but verify their behavior. This is different from doing nothing, from having no policy at all! Rather, it can be more like how we internally coach the next generation of callers, musicians, and dancers. We embrace the nuance and are very strong at guiding each other gently, within a general framework.

This email didn't have specific verbiage as asked, but I hope it is helpful. I have significant experience and training on how to organize groups, including contra-based ones, and this is how I'd break it down if I was setting a policy for a group right now. Thanks, organizers, for all you do. As much as possible, please don't be followers on this one.

Lex Spoon