[Organizers] Re: Is it time to end COVID restrictions at most contra dances?

Thank you, everyone, for a thoughtful, kind, and nuanced conversation about COVID, which is not a given when you dive into this subject. I really appreciate it. I have a friendly request to make: I'd love for there to be plenty of space for organizers who have not yet shared their thoughts to write in if they want. If you've already spoken up several times on this topic in this thread, maybe consider waiting a little while before writing in to give other folks a chance to "talk"? (Welcome to my facilitation brain, I think about "air space" and who does the talking in large-group settings quite a bit, and how to make sure we leave room for everyone.) [And now apparently I have a lot of words to say about this, thanks for your patience with a long email!] Our dance organizing team — for the Montpelier, VT, contra series — will be revisiting the issue of COVID protocols at our February meeting, so this thread is well timed. Our attendance has actually gone UP compared to pre-pandemic levels, including an influx of young and largely queer dancers, and a bunch of newbies; we're not quite sure what we're doing right but I hope it keeps working. (Part of what happened is that we had just switched to larks & robins role terms in Jan 2020...and after 2+ years, gender-neutral terms are just a given and no one seems to be fussed about them and it's just what we do. People are just happy to be dancing. A gift of easy transition to inclusivity via pandemic time!) Our current COVID policy is to require masks: no cloth masks, but both surgical and N95/KN94 are acceptable (we give out free N95/KN94 masks if folks need them). We started with a vaccination requirement in April 2022, but dropped it in July 2022. Our main reasoning was that our population is highly vaccinated already, and, because everyone is still required to mask, the addition of a handful of unvaxxed dancers posed a much higher risk to those unvaxxed folks than to the dance community at large. Therefore, the responsibility is on those dancers to choose whether to attend, not on us, since their presence doesn't have a huge effect on community safety. This is the distinction we have tried to pay attention to every time we consider COVID measures. Where is the line between personal risk and community risk? When are we responsible for people's safety, and when are they responsible for their own safety? We cannot make the dance 100% safe for everyone, and it never was 100% safe, even before COVID! We do want to make the dance as inclusive as we can (another reason for allowing unvaxxed dancers: getting to attend the dance and be part of the community again means a lot to those folks, which in our minds outweighs the minor safety impact they may have on vaccinated dancers). In my mind, masking is the more inclusive choice. It tells the immunocompromised folks in our community that we care about them and we want them to be part of the dance. It allows for people who hold a wide range of comfort levels with risk to all gather together. I just co-organized a very large event (a queer craft fair with 30+ vendors and 1,000+ attendees) and we required masking — and many many many community members told us how grateful they were to have a fully masked event, how they couldn't have participated otherwise, how everyone wearing masks normalized wearing masks, how it felt like a giant hug and an expression of care. And, everything keeps changing, and I'm willing to shift my thinking. I am occasionally going into cafes and restaurants unmasked now, something I would not have done three or four months ago. Maybe wearing masks protects the wearer well enough even if others have a naked face. I would love to see this chart from the Wall Street Journal about mask effectiveness updated for Omicron: https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1478867026542219264. And thank you Harris for articulating the very real truth that there is no one perfect solution, and we are going to alienate some of our community members no matter what we choose to do, and that sucks. Thanks for being a little online community of organizers as we help hold our communities in as much care as we can. With gratitude, Dana On Thu, Jan 5, 2023 at 10:17 AM Donna Hunt via Organizers < organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: -- Dana Dwinell-Yardley pronouns: she/her/hers 802-505-6639 Montpelier, Vermont _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net