Covid changes to public health in BRC may persist

[some seeing eye]

The BMORG has a good Covid advisory group. Their work may not be over yet.

Because of (anti-vax, conspiracy, Trump, false sense of immortality, and other stupid reasons) the virus may continue to circulate and mutate for a long time. Unfortunately the Covid processes which have been discussed could continue to 2022 BRC and beyond, with the cost borne by ticket buyers.

It affects GPE, ESD, Rangers & forced ejection, probably other departments.

Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/heal ... ccine.html

[Elliot]

When I grew up in Norway, everyone older than me had the smallpox vaccination scar on a shoulder.
I do not.

The last 14 months have given me extra opportunity to read, and I have read more history than I usually do.
And I can only conclude that what you mention --
(anti-vax, conspiracy, Trump, false sense of immortality, and other stupid reasons)
-- is fundamental to human nature.

We have work to do.
.

[Elliot]

In the European Middle Ages, "relics" were highly sought-after.
Relics were often (supposedly) fragments of bone from the skeleton of a saint. No surprise... the bone fragments were most often fragments of bone from cows and other animals!
But superstitions rule many people's lives, even today. And we may be regressing now. I know of no resistance to vaccinations -- polio and smallpox were a "big deal" -- when I was young in Norway. In high school, I had a teacher who limped rather badly from polio. Perhaps such examples helped people understand.

[scriptorpress]

BRC needs to be as safe a city as there can be. We are planning and paying to go there, to build it, to live in it for a magickal week or so. Whatever it takes to establish that public health based on sound science is not negotiable, needs to be done. It's a challenging enough environment as it is!

[lucky420]

Agreed ^^

[The Rod]

I may be wrong but it seems like the solution is pretty fucking straightforward. Make vaccines mandatory for staff, volunteers and attendees. Pay for vaccines for staff/volunteers that are required to live in close quarters in order to build/produce the event, offer routine testing for all staff and volunteers and (this is the one that IMO is beyond the ethical capabilities of BMORG) offer health care benefits to any staff or volunteers who are at risk of contracting COVID-19 or possess high-risk factors.

The movie production business has been *mostly* successfully managing to overcome the same type of obstacles in very similar situations.

[ygmir]

BRC needs to be as safe a city as there can be. We are planning and paying to go there, to build it, to live in it for a magickal week or so. Whatever it takes to establish that public health based on sound science is not negotiable, needs to be done. It's a challenging enough environment as it is!

sweet jeebus. never thought I'd read or "hear" that being said.

[some seeing eye]

Make vaccines mandatory for staff, volunteers and attendees.

Exactly! If you have a medical condition that prevents vaccination, you have a medical condition that prevents you from participating in the BRC campout, even pre-Covid. Of course you can participate in the virtual burns without risk.

We are closing in on vaccine approval to age 5. So under 5 can take a few years break from BRC until we get more data on under 5 Covid.

Sadly any such policy will probably be killed with what-aboutism by recalcitrant inner BORG board members.

To Mr Ygmir's observation, there is a difference between assumed experiential risk by an individual burner and creating a superspreader event by organizer policy that could impact all the countries in our participant census. Hahaha, the BORG insurer and the legal team would not allow a laissez-faire approach, and to create a Covid-safe PPE environment for medical would be cost prohibitive. The old wild days are gone, sadly.

Thanks Elliot! When I was young, I did something like an internship in a virology research lab. We used Polio as our routine test virus, but I was fine getting a second vaccine to work there. What I got from that job was an understanding an outbreak like Covid was inevitable, and could even have a much higher fatality rate.

[lucky420]

In the European Middle Ages, "relics" were highly sought-after.
Relics were often (supposedly) fragments of bone from the skeleton of a saint. No surprise... the bone fragments were most often fragments of bone from cows and other animals!
But superstitions rule many people's lives, even today. And we may be regressing now. I know of no resistance to vaccinations -- polio and smallpox were a "big deal" -- when I was young in Norway. In high school, I had a teacher who limped rather badly from polio. Perhaps such examples helped people understand.

I don’t think examples are going to changed the minds of the cow medicine cult. There are right wing commentators and leaders who are vocal anti vax who have flat out died and still the cow cult moos on

[scriptorpress]

We need to treat pandemic safety AS a legal issue. Like we do speed limits, murder, etc. Lay down the solid rules of the matter. You need a ticket to get in. You cannot openly vend products. You need to be vaccinated with proof. Period. And testing and quarantining should be part of the plan.

I'd guess nobody knows what BM 2022 will be like, in terms of numbers, virgins, returning veterans. Nor what the world will be like in a year. But beginning to socialize the "no-vaccine-no-entry" rule now is a good idea. Get it out there, like a meme.

It will be a critical year for BM's success and it would be a sad thing if a debate about being vaccinated was still going on in 2022. I hope the org lays down the law on this as soon as possible. Then, for those who simply will not get a vaccine, they can make other plans, and return when the coast is clear for all.

[BBadger]

Maybe it'll help keep out a lot of the anti-vax fringe-lunatics, the new age narcissists, Q-kooks, and others too.

[scriptorpress]

Huzzah to that!

[scriptorpress]

Following up this discussion after a long while. My wife and I decided not to return to BRC this year, concerned about the COVID situation. It was a hard decision, but hoping 2023 is finally really better for all, and the pandemic is not "over" because random people decide to ignore it, but really gone.

If this works, counting 1999 as my first, 2023 will be the 25th Burn I have (or have not) been a part of, since starting. Here's hoping!

Anyone else choose to stay home and wait till 2023?

[BBadger]

Following up this discussion after a long while. My wife and I decided not to return to BRC this year, concerned about the COVID situation. It was a hard decision, but hoping 2023 is finally really better for all, and the pandemic is not "over" because random people decide to ignore it, but really gone.

There's a high probability that Covid will be with us forever. It also seems to be trending towards ever greater ability to evade immunities and vaccines as variants emerge and reconverge. Have to considered what your plan is should this be the case?

[scriptorpress]

My plan is to be safe, me & my wife both. Whatever that means over time. I miss BRC like crazy, going many times changed my life for the better in so many ways.

But when I read how many came out of BM22 with COVID, and the fear of Long COVID and all that, the more I am glad I did not go.

I carry BRC in my heart. I have a BM2003 pendant on my neck. If I never go again, I have also never left.

But I hope to. I hope better medicines will turn the tide. These are coming.

It's a personal choice for all. This describes mine at this point. I just wondered if others here struggled with such questions too.

[BBadger]

I do hope we as a society, find a way to suppress covid to the point that it isn't a threat to most people's health.

[scriptorpress]

Me too!!!

[Elorrum]

Me three.

[FlyingMonkey]

BRC needs to be as safe a city as there can be. We are planning and paying to go there, to build it, to live in it for a magickal week or so. Whatever it takes to establish that public health based on sound science is not negotiable, needs to be done. It's a challenging enough environment as it is!

sweet jeebus. never thought I'd read or "hear" that being said.

It's a different kind of BRC now.

Next they'll say don't bring guns or drive your car over tents.

[FlyingMonkey]

BRC needs to be as safe a city as there can be.

Why should BRC be safer than any other city? That doesn't seem possible in even the best of years.

It also seems to be a somewhat entitled (dare I say privileged).

Think about what you said and then consider that you are talking about a place that has no running water, where 80,000 people share the same toilets and many don't practice the best hygiene. Not to mention that the Playa hates life.

Now consider the fact that its a week of self-indulgent excess in every way. Most participants push their bodies to extremes of exhaustion, sleep deprivation and often dehydration. Pretty much the antithesis of conditions for a healthy immune system.

I don't know whether to use the rolling eyes emoji or the barf emoji (Oh, that's right. The Mods haven't added the Barf emoji yet)

But I could be wrong.

[scriptorpress]

There is no reason why every city should not be safe for everyone living in it. That should not be a privilege for anyone. Should be true for all. For all the money wasted on excess in this world, just making sure every human being on the planet is safe, fed, and warm seems low on the list. Just wrong.

I've always gone to BRC for the Art, the sense of tolerance & kindness, the hope I feel being there, that people can possibly live well together. To me, it's more of a "what-could-be" place than a "what-is" place.

The pandemic has seemed to bring out the worst in us. But it does not have to be this way. And, in my heart, how I see it, BRC should be leading the way to show that there are better ways for people to live together, & on this planet. That's what I carry with me from all the Burns I've been lucky enough to go to.

[ygmir]

There is no reason why every city should not be safe for everyone living in it. That should not be a privilege for anyone. Should be true for all. For all the money wasted on excess in this world, just making sure every human being on the planet is safe, fed, and warm seems low on the list. Just wrong.

I've always gone to BRC for the Art, the sense of tolerance & kindness, the hope I feel being there, that people can possibly live well together. To me, it's more of a "what-could-be" place than a "what-is" place.

The pandemic has seemed to bring out the worst in us. But it does not have to be this way. And, in my heart, how I see it, BRC should be leading the way to show that there are better ways for people to live together, & on this planet. That's what I carry with me from all the Burns I've been lucky enough to go to.

yeah.

[BBadger]

Yeah.

[Elorrum]

I've always gone to BRC for the Art, the sense of tolerance & kindness, the hope I feel being there, that people can possibly live well together.

The pandemic has seemed to bring out the worst in us.

Yeah.

Sad those days seem to really be irreparably damaged. I’m pretty cynical now about any expectation of universal burner behavior.

It’s dilution of the culture or cultural evolution. Maybe It’s a trauma that will pass. Maybe it was just a lucky happenstance that there existed at burning man a like mindedness in a huge group that being a good neighbor was a joyful state. I felt it too. Maybe I am a fool, but I was happy with it.

My own knee jerk nastiness has grown so strong in isolation and fear. It’s my first reaction now, to experience judgement and rejection, even where no intent exists. To feel it from the well of what was my annual recharge at burning man is something to come to terms with. That it involves a transmissible disease, complicates it more. I haven’t expected much kindness for a while, and consequently do not offer much. I hope it’s a matter of simply being out of practice. I think my happiness is still tethered to people I do not know: Strangers who I say hello to, who smile, and say hello back.

[FlyingMonkey]

Half my camp caught Covid while on Playa. They were all vaxed and boosted. Fortunately they all had minor cases.

I think the real benefit of being fully boosted is in the severity and recovery when you do catch it.

Since we know that fully vaxed and boosted people can get and spread Covid I think you are living with a false sense of security if that is all you rely on and don't take other precautions.

Now if everyone attending the Burn were fully boosted and every person they had contact with for the previous 2 weeks were too, then we may see fewer cases. But you know we will never have that scenario.

I think Covid will be with us for a long time and being among 80,000 people in primitive living conditions for a week increases your odds of getting it.

The only safe Burn is the one you see on Youtube and read about in social media. There have been zero cases of computer to human transmission of Covid.

That's a real shifty option but I'm being realistic.

[Elorrum]

I think Covid will be with us for a long time and being among 80,000 people in primitive living conditions for a week increases your odds of getting it.

Yep, it goes where people go and congregate. One individual can infect many in the right conditions. Cruise ships and airplanes, burning man, anecdotally. I have a few friends right now who are sick with it for the first time, that they know of.

From the cdc weekly morbidity and mortality report Nov. 18, 2022: “One half of adults surveyed during June–July 2022 who had recently received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan and DuPage County, Illinois perceived local COVID-19 transmission when surveyed to be low or moderate, despite documented sustained high transmission.” https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/ ... 21-DM94113

People will behave according to what they want to think about covid, disregarding documented fact. They are finished worrying and preventative behavior has waned. A shot that will make preventative behavior unnecessary hasn’t really panned out, though many want to believe it means no mask or distance needed anywhere. Many have stopped trying to avoid it, accept their chances, and convince themselves covid has finished running it’s course. I understand the fatigue, and the throwing up of hands at endemicity. Still, I find the surprise at catching it, and the lack of concern about long term morbidity, baffling.