Our Health and Safety

After my post about the importance of prioritizing Covid safety at events, I was introduced to the Public Health Pledge. I love this idea and am pleased to see some big events adopting health and safety policies. I want to see more events adopting them. For more on this, I recommend Josh’s post, “An event organizer’s duty of care: from Codes of Conduct to Health and Safety policies.”

I thought it might be helpful to start with a page on my own site about the health and safety guidelines I follow. This post is sort of a rough draft of that. I still need to add some links in the text below. Feedback is welcome!

2024-02-18 update: I’ve now published My Health and Safety Guidelines and linked it from the bottom of the homepage.

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Draft:

Background

I am committed to taking steps to keep other people healthy and safe.

I have been trying to unlearn the hyper-individualism that our US culture promotes and lean into community care more. Our individual choices can have an impact on more than just our own health. In recent years, we’ve learned this lesson again from the effectiveness of respirators at reducing transmission of airborne viruses.

I am also striving to confront and unlearn the ableism and eugenics that are within ideas like “only the most vulnerable need to take precautions.”

I think sharing my personal health and safety guidelines is good for transparency, so people can easily know what I’m doing. I hope it helps normalize discussing precautions and gives more room for people to express their needs and boundaries. Perhaps this will encourage people to take some stronger precautions in their own daily life, too.

Since we know that COVID is airborne, highly transmissible, and people can be infectious without showing symptoms [add links], I’m committed to the following.

Masking

I use the phrase “wear a mask” here as a shorthand to mean: a well-fitting respirator such as a KN95, N95, or similar rating.

• I will wear a mask in public indoor spaces. This includes healthcare settings, stores, airports, airplanes, and public transit.
• I will wear a mask in crowded outdoor spaces, like concerts, or outdoor gatherings where people will be in close proximity

Testing

• I will take a rapid antigen test 24 hours before attending an event or flying
• I will take a rapid antigen test 3-5 days after any potential exposures, like concerts, flying, or other gatherings

Illness

• I will not attend an event or fly if I test positive for COVID, or if I’m experiencing any COVID or flu-like symptoms
• If I test positive, I will report results to event organizers and people I was in proximity with