We made a similar decision at my Zen center, although for different reasons.
When we re-opened to in-person sitting in 2022, we required both masking at all times indoors and that everyone be fully vaccinated.
Early in 2023, we dropped both requirements. We looked, and estimated that >90% of people likely to attend the Zen center would be vaccinated or have naturally immunity from prior infection. Additionally, mask requirements were rapidly disappearing across the Bay Area, and keeping one felt silly since we were all going out to places without masks on.
Here in early 2024, things are basically back to normal after a year of gradually ramping reduced mask usage. We don’t ask or really think about vaccination status. We have an air purifier in the zendo, and people do occasionally wear masks if they want, and we added some text to our webpage encouraging people to stay home and join us on Zoom if they are sick or have recently been exposed to someone who was sick.
Given attendance is back up at or above pre-pandemic levels, I feel comfortable saying that the lack of restrictions is not in general deterring folks, and as far as I know we’ve not heard from anyone that they would attend in person if we had a mask or vaccine requirement.
I suspect there is some heavy overlap between people who attend the zen center and people who would attend a contra dance, although I’m guessing contra dance attendees skew younger than zen center attendees. If anything you’d expect old people to be more worried about COVID, so I consider this weak evidence that you’re making the right choice.
Oh wow! Everyone I know who is into contra dancing in the Bay Area seems to be late 20s to early 30s. I don’t go to contra dances myself, though, so seems I may have incorrectly extrapolated about the demographics.
If anything you’d expect old people to be more worried about COVID, so I consider this weak evidence that you’re making the right choice.
That assumes that the motivating factor is more about health concerns than tribal signaling for those who care a lot about the vaccination status of other people.
I expect that to be false, and a lot of people who are strongly in favor of keeping out unvaccinated people like the fact that it keeps out certain people with whom they politically disagree. If they could make a rule that disallows Trump voters from attending they would likely also be in favor of such a rule.
Sure, these are all relevant factors to why some people may want a vaccine requirement, but Jeff seems to mostly be concerned about making the choice that is best for the health of attendees and not about signaling tribal affiliation, and so it’s in that context that I suggest this fact is weak evidence in support of his choice.
We made a similar decision at my Zen center, although for different reasons.
When we re-opened to in-person sitting in 2022, we required both masking at all times indoors and that everyone be fully vaccinated.
Early in 2023, we dropped both requirements. We looked, and estimated that >90% of people likely to attend the Zen center would be vaccinated or have naturally immunity from prior infection. Additionally, mask requirements were rapidly disappearing across the Bay Area, and keeping one felt silly since we were all going out to places without masks on.
Here in early 2024, things are basically back to normal after a year of gradually ramping reduced mask usage. We don’t ask or really think about vaccination status. We have an air purifier in the zendo, and people do occasionally wear masks if they want, and we added some text to our webpage encouraging people to stay home and join us on Zoom if they are sick or have recently been exposed to someone who was sick.
Given attendance is back up at or above pre-pandemic levels, I feel comfortable saying that the lack of restrictions is not in general deterring folks, and as far as I know we’ve not heard from anyone that they would attend in person if we had a mask or vaccine requirement.
I suspect there is some heavy overlap between people who attend the zen center and people who would attend a contra dance, although I’m guessing contra dance attendees skew younger than zen center attendees. If anything you’d expect old people to be more worried about COVID, so I consider this weak evidence that you’re making the right choice.
Nationally I suspect this isn’t the case; I’d guess 80% of contra dancers are baby boomers. But some communities have much younger demographics.
Oh wow! Everyone I know who is into contra dancing in the Bay Area seems to be late 20s to early 30s. I don’t go to contra dances myself, though, so seems I may have incorrectly extrapolated about the demographics.
The LW/EA overlap with contra is pretty much only in the younger crowd, driven mostly (I think) by LW/EA being younger overall.
That assumes that the motivating factor is more about health concerns than tribal signaling for those who care a lot about the vaccination status of other people.
I expect that to be false, and a lot of people who are strongly in favor of keeping out unvaccinated people like the fact that it keeps out certain people with whom they politically disagree. If they could make a rule that disallows Trump voters from attending they would likely also be in favor of such a rule.
Sure, these are all relevant factors to why some people may want a vaccine requirement, but Jeff seems to mostly be concerned about making the choice that is best for the health of attendees and not about signaling tribal affiliation, and so it’s in that context that I suggest this fact is weak evidence in support of his choice.