[Organizers] Re: Is it time to change our mask mandates?

Hello all, Thought I'd chime in. We are doing well in Los Angeles area (see attached). We just announced that a vaccine will no longer be required for our “public” dances however, for the moment, masks still are required. They will need to be KN94/95 masks equivalent (somehow I feel my compatriots will chime in with more specifics about it all). Since it was not a unanimous vote we opted to do the public classes and events (open to all) with this new rule however we are keeping the long running “challenging” class and “Dance Kitchen” (think “Woodshed”) a while longer with the rules that have been in place for the last several months. This will allow a place for all to dance, except those who won't dance wearing a mask. I do feel that as things open up more and more and the official state of emergency ends it will become increasingly difficult for organizations to stick with the strict rules we have had in place the last 2+ years. We feel making masks optional is something that is going to happen in the not too distant future. Additionally there have been three major events with no covid policies (November-200 dancers, January-250 dancers, March-160 dancers) with no known outbreaks (though the different groups did not do contact tracing many of us know the dancers and believe we would have heard if there had been a major outbreak). We are very thankful that the health numbers for our local situation are so good and appreciate how lucky we are to be able to open windows and let that air flow! I seldom chime in on things, though I lurk in the background, due to people going on the defense or sometimes attacking. I am only posting so you have some information on what we are doing here in our part of the world. Cal Dance Co-op, another local group where there is a lot of crossover dancers with our group, has its own rules you can find here: https://www.caldancecoop.org/resources/covid-19-policies/. Hope this helps. FYI, We run an Organizers Meet-up on 2nd Mondays every month on zoom where we discuss many different issues that attendees bring up including current covid policies. We welcome you to join in. It was started with ECD organizers however we welcome all who are dealing with running similar style dance groups. ORGANIZERS MEET-UP 2ND MONDAYS 1:30–2:30pm pacific/4:30–5:30pm eastern ZOOM LINK: https://tinyurl.com/ECD-Organizers Thank you, Darlene ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Darlene Hamilton *Caller, Dancer, Founder of* *The Historical Tea & Dance Society* *Historical Balls, Tea Dances, and Historical Dance classes* *For more information about events and classes go to**www.historicalteaanddance.org <http://www.historicalteaanddance.org/>* *Like us on facebook!*