Hello team! After some work and discussion among the DebConf Committee members, we can share with you: We have a DebConf Health Policy we are reasonably happy with!
Please disregard the URL — when we started discussing this, we thought it
would be a COVID policy, but decided it made more sense for it to be about
_health_.
https://pad.debian.net/p/debconf-covid-policy
Please share any comments you have; if nothing too disrupting is brought
up, it should be™ uploaded to the web site together with the registration
opening. Of course — the text is to be the contents of the pad until before
the “Brainstorming” header. I'm copying here the full text for ease of
reference.
– Gunnar (as part of the DebConf Committee)
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# DebConf health policy
"DebFlu" / "the DebConf bug" has been a part of DebConf since the
beginning. COVID-19 brought a new highly-infectious disease to the
conference, but also gave us a higher level of awareness and some of the
tools to better deal with these problems.
The aim of this health policy is to allow us to hold DebConf without having
to deal with a major disease outbreak or having to send our attendees home
sick. We aim to balance the risks with reasonable infection reduction
controls and responses. For the best success, each and every attendee has
to do their part and behave responsibly towards the rest of our community.
DebConf is a social event we look forward to attending every year, and the
frustration of missing out after having travelled far can be very large. We
don't want to impose hurtful isolation or strict rules on anybody, but we
must all care of the whole group.
This health policy is an extension of the conference code of conduct, that
everyone is expected to follow. Like the rest of the CoC It is not a rigid
set of rules to be used to kick people out of the conference, but
guidelines to follow. If attendees don't respect the code and their fellow
attendees, they can expect to be reminded of the policies. Eventually, if
continually ignored, this can and will lead to attendees being asked to
leave the event.
## The **minimum** expected behaviour for all of our attendees is:
- Be excellent to each other. Understand that some attendees are more at
risk than others, and we don't all take the same risks in handling
infectious disease.
- You SHOULD get vaccinated against at least the most common infectious
diseases (COVID, flu) weeks or months before coming to DebConf.
- You SHOULD test for current infectious diseases before starting to travel
to DebConf. Recovering at home is much more fun than staying two weeks
locked down at the hotel room or travelling while sick.
- If you feel a little unwell or just "down", you MUST:
- Request a COVID-19 self-test from the front-desk.
- Avoid enclosed spaces with uninfected attendees as much as possible.
- Wear a mask whenever around others and food.
- If you know you are infected with something contagious, you MUST:
- Let the organization know: Email [email protected]
- Avoid enclosed conference spaces, and instead attend talks remotely.
- Request isolated accommodation.
- You MUST only smoke in the designated smoking areas. The conference spaces
are smoke-free.
## The conference organisers will:
- Strongly recommend vaccines for infectious diseases before attending
debconf (covid, flu, etc.)
- Aim to have venues with good ventilation (natural, or filtered)
- Aim to provide a convenient, comfortable smoking area fairly close to the
venue. Ideally with hacking space, within wifi coverage, while still
avoiding to bring smoke to the venue
- Recommend wearing a mask in enclosed places if you think you may be ill,
or have a higher risk profile than average)
- Provide adequate N95 and surgical masks at the front desk.
- Provide open spaces for attendees with infectious diseases to socialize
- Provide adequate tests for current infectious diseases (at least COVID)
- Make events that are part of the conference accessible to people who need
to keep a distance from the main attendee body, on a best-effort basis
and considering the nature of each such event.
- Make isolated accommodation available (on-site, where possible) for
attendees who need to self-isolate.
- Notify the hotel/venue know which rooms have infectious attendees in
them, so they can protect their staff.
- If we offer our meals in a buffet-like setting, make it possible for sick
attendees to serve themselves on meals by setting up a separate food
station. If that's not possible, make it possible for them to _look_ at
the food and state their preferences so that somebody serves them as they
want
- Cover your travel bursary, if you need to cancel attendance due to an
infectious disease. And the (reasonable) cost of an early return for the
same reasons.
- Refund your conference-organized expenses if you have to cancel
attendance due to an infectious disease.
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