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NEWS: Otakon 2021 Will Require Masks But Will Not Require Proof of Vaccination


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Aresef



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 909
Location: MD
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 5:13 am Reply with quote
I wish they could require vaccinations for anyone who can get one but I also understand the logistical hurdles for imposing a requirement like that on such a large event.
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 5:53 am Reply with quote
Unfortunate decision. Have been considering attending, but that gives me pause. Also, still wondering what the fully vaccinated rate will look like by that point in time; both the national and DC-specific rates are still hovering between 40% and 50% or so. The CDC estimates about a third of the US population has been infected to date, so maybe the true rate of people less likely to serve as transmission vectors is between 40% and 80%; if closer to the upper end of that range, I guess that would be pretty good.

Still, it is hard to know how many people who've been vaccinated also previously had COVID, and so I had kind of hoped we'd get the verifiably, fully vaccinated rate to 80%+ before we start hosting massive crowded events again. Vaccination seems to largely remove the risk of hospitalization/death, but given that it only seems to partially blunt incubation and transmission, it would sure be nice to get the probability of long chains of transmission down to near 0.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 8:00 am Reply with quote
^I suppose the difficulty in ensuring everyone attending is fully vaccinated is why they are requiring everyone to wear masks, even though in almost every state, masks are optional for fully vaccinated people or will be by then. Ultimately, the local government has determined that it’s okay to hold events like this (not necessarily unreasonably, given new cases in the area are dwindling down to their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, even with the relaxed restrictions), so they can’t claim force majeure, and that means they would be choosing between going forward and going out of business.
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AJ (LordNikon)



Joined: 14 Apr 2009
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Location: Kyoto
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 8:04 am Reply with quote
NeverConvex wrote:
Unfortunate decision. Have been considering attending, but that gives me pause. Also, still wondering what the fully vaccinated rate will look like by that point in time; both the national and DC-specific rates are still hovering between 40% and 50% or so. The CDC estimates about a third of the US population has been infected to date, so maybe the true rate of people less likely to serve as transmission vectors is between 40% and 80%; if closer to the upper end of that range, I guess that would be pretty good.

Still, it is hard to know how many people who've been vaccinated also previously had COVID, and so I had kind of hoped we'd get the verifiably, fully vaccinated rate to 80%+ before we start hosting massive crowded events again. Vaccination seems to largely remove the risk of hospitalization/death, but given that it only seems to partially blunt incubation and transmission, it would sure be nice to get the probability of long chains of transmission down to near 0.


Even at current, your numbers are low. By the time of Otakon, number will be higher still.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/28/960901166/how-is-the-covid-19-vaccination-campaign-going-in-your-state

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/reporting-vaccinations.html
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 8:35 am Reply with quote
AJ (LordNikon) wrote:


I'm not sure what you mean? My 40% figure (which was the lower of the two I gave; I provided a range because this varies by plus-or-minus 5% or so across states, though DC's is probably the most relevant one) is almost exactly what your NPR article also claims for the national fully vaccinated rate: "Since COVID-19 vaccine distribution began in the United States on Dec. 14, more than 299 million doses have been administered, fully vaccinating over 137 million people or 41.4% of the total U.S. population."

zrnzle500 wrote:
^I suppose the difficulty in ensuring everyone attending is fully vaccinated is why they are requiring everyone to wear masks, even though in almost every state, masks are optional for fully vaccinated people or will be by then.


Yes, I agree that's probably their reasoning. I personally think the CDC's declaration that vaccinated folks needn't wear masks seems quite premature, and am happy at least that Otakon is insisting on masks.
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Wasureta



Joined: 21 Dec 2015
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:20 am Reply with quote
Is this convention for-profit? If so, I wouldn't be surprised about the decision. The article doesn't say anything about capacity limits too. Their website doesn't say anything about capacity limits too. Digging a little deeper, they tout the technology enhancements, but the enhancements are geared toward surface-to-person infections. At the very bottom, the site talks about air filtration enhancements, but it doesn't give any details.

It would be good if the air exchange frequency has increased to the same level as an airplane while also going through the HEPA filter.

Anyways, if they're a non-profit, I don't understand why they would volunteer to be guinea pigs and be the first convention in DC.
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Wasureta



Joined: 21 Dec 2015
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:22 am Reply with quote
Does anyone actually believe volunteers will be able to enforce the mask rule? Flight attendants get beaten up when confronting passengers.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:45 am Reply with quote
^Otakorp is non-profit, but being non-profit doesn’t mean you don’t have expenses you have to pay. As it says in the article, they had to ask for money earlier this year in order to avoid closing forever, so I can’t imagine they can afford to pass on holding it when the local government has given the okay to hold such events, which means they can’t get out of paying for some of the contracts involved in the event by saying they aren’t allowed to hold it.
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J0HN_L0CKE



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:55 am Reply with quote
I miss conventions, but the very nature of them is still a bridge too far in 2021. Vaccinated or not it's not smart to have a massive globs of people jammed into a single spaces just yet. But I'm generally a better safe than sorry type of person.
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 11:24 am Reply with quote
J0HN_L0CKE wrote:
I miss conventions, but the very nature of them is still a bridge too far in 2021. Vaccinated or not it's not smart to have a massive globs of people jammed into a single spaces just yet. But I'm generally a better safe than sorry type of person.


I think we could reasonably justify it if vaccination rates were approaching current estimates of the herd immunity threshold. The US still seems to be 15-30% below that, though (not counting people who've had COVID, just those who've been vaccinated, since it's hard to estimate the size of the intersection of those two sets of people); COVID-19 herd immunity estimates from straightforward epidemiological models are currently in the 60-75% range, versus the 46% DC vaccination rate, and the 41% national rate.

We'll probably be quite close to the lower end of that range by Otakon, but I think I'd rather be a little bit above the upper bound, to confidently avoid another major spreader event.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 11:51 am Reply with quote
Without a national vaccine passport and a verification system that goes with it, you cannot really mandate anything concerning vaccinations. Anybody can and will, print up their own fake vaccination status forms. There are probably people and websites even now creating fake vaccination passport forms for each of the 50 states and the territories.
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Aresef



Joined: 22 Jun 2005
Posts: 909
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Wasureta wrote:
Is this convention for-profit? If so, I wouldn't be surprised about the decision. The article doesn't say anything about capacity limits too. Their website doesn't say anything about capacity limits too. Digging a little deeper, they tout the technology enhancements, but the enhancements are geared toward surface-to-person infections. At the very bottom, the site talks about air filtration enhancements, but it doesn't give any details.

It would be good if the air exchange frequency has increased to the same level as an airplane while also going through the HEPA filter.

Anyways, if they're a non-profit, I don't understand why they would volunteer to be guinea pigs and be the first convention in DC.


They’re nonprofit. A while back, they were asking members for donations and talking about their grim fiscal picture.

DC is reopened so the facility has no capacity limits. Otakon only knows whatever WEWCC is telling them. An attendance cap would likely be academic anyway.

I feel like they were in a position where, contractually, they had to go on.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5887
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 3:36 pm Reply with quote
Wasureta wrote:
Does anyone actually believe volunteers will be able to enforce the mask rule? Flight attendants get beaten up when confronting passengers.


And those passengers not only get arrested but also fined in some cases. I mean they can't force people to wear masks but they can have them removed from the premises for violating the rules.
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Helix91
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Joined: 30 Apr 2017
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:05 am Reply with quote
I'm cautiously optimistic that masks won't even be needed by early August. We'll learn a lot more in the coming months, especially from places that are allowing full crowds at indoor sporting events now.

I've taken mask-wearing and social distancing very seriously, but another thing we should take seriously is how good these vaccines are.
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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:08 pm Reply with quote
My feeling on the matter, its gonna be hot, there's gonna be loads of heavy cosplay, adn the target demo for a con is perhaps the safest. If the mandate in that area is already gone, it should be even better conditions by the time the con arrives. So I'd say go maskless. If a new variant is picking up steam, they could always make an advisory beforehand.

In indoor spaces masks provide benefit that diminishes with time. If someone affected was sitting in that building for 3 days, its gonna spread, masks or not. Vaccinations and line management I think are better answers. More time between events in room to let the air thin out is another thing one can do.

Frankly, if I were Otakon, I'd say "At this time it looks like you should bring one, and you may or may be required to use one if the situation deteriorates. Locking yourself into "Must Wear" when we're still this far out seems unnecessary.
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