People sweat while dancing. Some people sweat a lot. I have heard that wet, even damp, cloth masks are essentially useless. Does this hold true for surgical type masks as well? If so, many folks will be effectively unmasked for much of the evening, even if they do something reasonable like get a fresh mask every 2-3 dances.
On an entirely separate note, my community has re-started some of its dances with mask and vacc required, no exceptions. This has excluded several families with children who were active participants pre-pandemic. What is your plan regards to families with children? The “I” in BIDA perhaps makes it extra un-pallatable to exclude them.
On damp masks, this wasn’t something I noticed when we hosted an outdoor contra. People who’ve held dances like this indoors: is that something you’ve seen?
With children, Pfizer received the EUA for 5-11 last week, and the CDC will likely sign off this week.
Speaking for myself and not for BIDA, while I think intergenerationality is important, I don’t think it is so important that it should preclude having dances before vaccination is available for all, if vaccination is necessary for safety.
I think it depends mainly on the ambient humidity. If the temperature and humidity are both on the high side, then ambient humidity plus sweating/exhaling dancers sometimes crosses a threshold that leaves everyone drenched in sweat. It only happens in summer and in spaces without A/C.
While most dancing children will be covered by the recent EUA, many younger ones (and therefore likely one or both parents) will not. I understand that you yourself have a <1 year old for whom the vaccine availability timeline is unclear. She would not be welcome at the dance events hosted in my area.
I’m finding this exchange strangely frustrating. I was trying to ask whether you planned to explicitly exclude children under 2 and/or 5, since my understanding is the local laws would permit an event with them and so your plan in this regard wasn’t clear to me from your writeup. I expected there to be either a small additional risk in your analysis from including them or an included cost to not, since then presumably people are paying a sitter (or staying home). I don’t have a strong opinion either way on the correct approach. But “I would not personally bring my small child” is not an answer to the question.
I will say that I, personally, have not returned to the dances ~one hour away because they will not permit my <1 year old to enter the building. It’s not a principled disagreement, it’s just that the cascading impacts mean that it is not worth it to me personally to attend. If my kid were to attend, I wouldn’t do a carrier. Various people would trade off sitting out. One venue managed to accommodate this by having a space in a different room (not the one used for dancing) for the kid and the kid-minder, but the main venue that has resumed dancing does not allow entry to the kid under any circumstances. And that’s fine! But it means it is not worth it to me to attend.
I do bring my kid to other indoor places (e.g., shopping, buses) which I understand is not the cultural norm in the Boston area currently.
People sweat while dancing. Some people sweat a lot. I have heard that wet, even damp, cloth masks are essentially useless. Does this hold true for surgical type masks as well? If so, many folks will be effectively unmasked for much of the evening, even if they do something reasonable like get a fresh mask every 2-3 dances.
On an entirely separate note, my community has re-started some of its dances with mask and vacc required, no exceptions. This has excluded several families with children who were active participants pre-pandemic. What is your plan regards to families with children? The “I” in BIDA perhaps makes it extra un-pallatable to exclude them.
On damp masks, this wasn’t something I noticed when we hosted an outdoor contra. People who’ve held dances like this indoors: is that something you’ve seen?
With children, Pfizer received the EUA for 5-11 last week, and the CDC will likely sign off this week.
Speaking for myself and not for BIDA, while I think intergenerationality is important, I don’t think it is so important that it should preclude having dances before vaccination is available for all, if vaccination is necessary for safety.
I think it depends mainly on the ambient humidity. If the temperature and humidity are both on the high side, then ambient humidity plus sweating/exhaling dancers sometimes crosses a threshold that leaves everyone drenched in sweat. It only happens in summer and in spaces without A/C.
While most dancing children will be covered by the recent EUA, many younger ones (and therefore likely one or both parents) will not. I understand that you yourself have a <1 year old for whom the vaccine availability timeline is unclear. She would not be welcome at the dance events hosted in my area.
All the children here who would be capable enough to dance at our regular dances are old enough for the EUA.
In the before times, people would bring infants and wear them in carriers, but I wouldn’t bring one currently even if a dance allowed it.
I’m finding this exchange strangely frustrating. I was trying to ask whether you planned to explicitly exclude children under 2 and/or 5, since my understanding is the local laws would permit an event with them and so your plan in this regard wasn’t clear to me from your writeup. I expected there to be either a small additional risk in your analysis from including them or an included cost to not, since then presumably people are paying a sitter (or staying home). I don’t have a strong opinion either way on the correct approach. But “I would not personally bring my small child” is not an answer to the question.
I will say that I, personally, have not returned to the dances ~one hour away because they will not permit my <1 year old to enter the building. It’s not a principled disagreement, it’s just that the cascading impacts mean that it is not worth it to me personally to attend. If my kid were to attend, I wouldn’t do a carrier. Various people would trade off sitting out. One venue managed to accommodate this by having a space in a different room (not the one used for dancing) for the kid and the kid-minder, but the main venue that has resumed dancing does not allow entry to the kid under any circumstances. And that’s fine! But it means it is not worth it to me to attend.
I do bring my kid to other indoor places (e.g., shopping, buses) which I understand is not the cultural norm in the Boston area currently.