Re: COVID [was: Re: DebConf 25 Daily announcements - 2025.07.15 - Daytrip information && DebConf Day 2]
Hi Olly,
Le 2025-07-16 13:36, Olly Betts a écrit :
I didn't write an email about this yesterday because I'd have struggled
to not write a very long and angry rant and I don't think that would
have been helpful.
That was a good thing, thank you for this. Andreas Tille shared some
interesting tips during his talks about how he manages e-mail and often
self-delays and self-rate-limit his posts on some topics. I try to apply
similar recipes myself.
I looked at the published COVID policy as part of my decision to attend
DebConf and I trusted that the policy would be generally followed by
other attendees with gentle but firm encouragement/enforcement if
required.
My take on this is that if a similar policy is reconducted I probably
won't attend again, for Reasons that I'm willing to eventually discuss
but later, just not right now.
I realise there's a risk that anyone could be wandering around
infectious and be asymptomatic or just not have developed symptoms
yet. However it's quite a different matter for people to be active in
public areas knowingly being infectious. Masks help but aren't
perfect.
That's it's quite a different matter is probably where we disagree.
Pragmatically, and assuming I adhere to some reasonable precautions
(mask, barrier gestures, distancing) how many times greater would my
additional presence make your probability of being contaminated among
all that crowd? My own guess is that it's likely to be something like
one, decimal point, several zeros and then some value. Technically, yes,
it would increase your risk, but by a value so low that it can be
ignored (as there are much greater concerns to be addressed first).
From what I've heard the current local "official" COVID recommendations
(from French health administrations) are based on similar arguments:
benefits of self-isolation are no more worth the trouble. Other
countries apply different policies. Organizations and events may also
choose to have their own, stricter policy.
Essentially it's all about finding a reasonable balance and agreeing on
where to draw the line; whatever the resulting location is, it will be
pretty arbitrary, and the only way to completely eliminate any risk is
to not have any people.
--
Julien Plissonneau Duquène
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