No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023
ccc.de
ccc.de
It's a bit sad that they (apparently?) won't be doing a remote replacement, though. I realize you can't do a proper Congress remotely, but having some of the nice things (like the talks) sure beats having none. Not sure how exactly those decentralized events will shape out, but their announcement reads like they're focusing on the in-person elements, so I have to assume they'll be like hackerspace open-door events that cater to the locals.
I'm not seeing any evidence anywhere that there were 'dangerous' rates of hospitalizations, unless you consider any increase 'dangerous'. Have any facts to back that up, or is it hyperbole?
Fact is that Germany has seen a jump in people being infected, hospitalized, and generally being on sick leave, which triggers and triggered already a number of consequences from that. This includes operations being shifted around, and other (localized) health system overloads due to staff shortages. "Traditional media" actually covered the more official complaints coming from that direction.
The traditional reporting sucks. This year there was a strike in hospitals in NRW and the traditional media mostly reported about it after it finished after 77 days.
I agree, a tweet on its own doesn't prove much. But I've been following some accounts that work in hospitals for a while now and I noticed a change in tone.
I would be extra careful right now not to get yourself into an emergency situation. The problem is you only notice how bad the situation is if you work there or you need some services.
Which is far from convincing.
You can bet the government will jump on it to suppress the growing energy crisis, anti-war and cost-of-living protests though.
Very likely the go/nogo point to commit to large expenses (eg venue hire) is now and these would not be refundable. Yet participants would expect to be refunded.
Any financial reserves would already be strained by now. Making it a risk for the survival of the organization if it would have to be cancelled again.
And IMO an event with forced masks or other heavy-handed measures would not be worth it. And Germany is very quick to go for mandatory measures compared to other countries.
Other years there were colds... The usual... But the 2019 edition was real nasty.
It might have been this article, the earliest (relevant) mention of pneumonia cases I could find: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713
I think the "Seuche" in Congress-Seuche falls somewhere in between. I can attest that at least Congress-Seuche has been in use in the past, somewhat analogous to the annual "Wiesnseuche" flu wave in Munich during and after the Oktoberfest.
My dream would be ICC Berlin with it's spectacular architecture, it's also huge. The only drawback is that it's currently standing empty with no plans for it's future.
Moving into winter, the general situation can change and many people are expecting more strict regulations.
And then there’s the question of community and personal assessments. C3 is an event run by a community that tends to be note cautious with respect to risks. And, as the announcement says, "[w]hat might be possible would not be a Congress".
Basically, if a state parliament identifies a "concrete danger for the functioning of the health care system", they can impose certain additional measures. For instance "hygiene concepts" for events may be required, next to obligatory mask wearing and social distancing.
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus...
https://www.zeit.de/wissen/aktuelle-corona-zahlen-karte-deut...
My personal take from this was a) FFP2 masks work - I strictly wore one indoors and didn't get sick b) things are not back to normal, despite what some people say. I don't remember this many people getting sick after an event before Covid.
Great! So if people are still afraid of catching COVID, they can just protect themselves with the masks. Problem solved.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You don't know if the attendees were vaccinated. You don't know if/how they tested. When I got vaccinated, and also when there wasn't a wave, I got more lax. It requires focus and attention span to follow the precautions. Except for vaccination. That's a shot, perhaps some side effects, and you're good to go for a while. Masks have more adverse side effects. And I say that as someone who has a needle phobia, got vaccinated multiple times, but also who wears glasses and prefers the fresh air over the mask (nausea).
I've also done self-tests which, in start turned out nothing, and then once it onset (I already felt ill) suddenly bingo.
> My personal take from this was a) FFP2 masks work
> I strictly wore one indoors and didn't get sick
N=1
Masks primary role is to ensure you don't spread COVID, not that you don't contract it.
The more plausible explanations that you don't got COVID is that you were a) lucky b) vaccinated c) used more precautions like social distancing / didn't frolic around the crazy 'social' people who YOLO.
With masks it requires cooperation in order for it to work. It doesn't work like a condom: put one on, be protected. Everyone puts one on (a good one, as you asserted, though even a mediocre one is 'Good Enough') and then the chance it gets spread is minimal.
Masks, which can be loose fitting and have lower filtration performance, are where you really need everyone wearing them since they perform best as source control. But for those who want to be more cautious, wearing a N95 class "mask" (FFR) even if others around you are not masking is still highly effective.
Not true for FFP2s, N95s, and the likes. Which are more common in Germany than in most other places.
How you got to/from the conference is also a huge factor. Spending a lot of time in packed airplanes and crowded international terminals are probably at least as big a risk factor as the conference itself.
In contrast to others, who act completely surprised, when the predictions come true.
We can't always keep walking on our toes because something might happen.
Europe is ahead, as usual, with new Covid variants, so the CCC is adequately prudent.
While in the UK for political reasons covid is regarded as "over", in many other countries... Restrictions are highly likely to come back over the winter if the health systems come under pressure.
Germany is (sadly) not running a China-style Zero Covid plan.
Especially considering the chaos congress was, even before covid, known for the "hacker pest", a type of flu that pretty much every attendee would contract due to bringing together so many people from different regions for a week (also known as cccebola). The organizers want to avoid the same occuring with BA.5 or an even newer Covid variant.
Assuming sarcasm
Having a 2 to 3 week lockdown every few months would be far preferable over the current situation where you constantly have to be on the lookout yourself and will still get infected anyway, resulting in weeks of being unable to work due to long covid.
If you've had long covid, even when vaccinated (as in my case), you'll realize why stricter measures are so important.
Most local ccc chapters, e.g., Chaosdorf, still enforce a strict vaccination + daily tests + FFP2 masks rule for their spaces, for the same reasons.
One of the major features of the chaos congress was that it was purely run by volunteers, including the emergency response team. And pretty much no one with that knowledge would support an event like the congress in the current pandemic situation.
I moved to Germany (and Europe) in 2019. I was planning to attend conferences/tech gatherings like this that were previously prohibitive for me once I got settled in but then 2020 had other plans for the world.
It was a bit late when I realized this year that conferences and big gatherings are back. Unfortunately the ones I would've attended (PyCon, We Are Developers) were in conflict with other things like a concert that I already paid for.
This would've been the first opportunity without a conflict for me. Shame although I can understand (and even sympathize with) the organizers' prudence.
We've had vaccines since early 2021, and the 2021 winter still had restrictions, now we're two years down the road and looking at another wave and another restricted winter.
I don't see how it's going to be substantially different for the 2023 winter unless there's some new revolutionary thing (e.g. vaccine that prevents infection and spread) or COVID kills itself through evolution.
[1]: https://entropia.de/GPN (German)
Given that virtually every other country in the world seems to have accepted that Covid will be here to stay, Germans will eventually have to take the plunge as well.
Isn't that offset by university summer holidays, providing lots of idle lecture halls and student accommodation?
Doesn‘t evolution work the other way around?
To be honest, its been pretty shit. The meatspace part is what actually makes congress good.
The reason for them not doing the even is not the country or the regulations but the fact that Covid is a thing and they have a healthy common sense.
I never understood the Christmas holiday schedule of kongress and it has kept me from ever attending these past 20+ years … too many other commitments and too crazy a travel season …
Of course, covid now changes things, but until christmas holidays are in summer (the southern hemisphere could finally have them during their winter season, perhaps we should swap it every other year?), it won't be the case that literally everyone has holidays and it works out so well again.
I wonder what it is that brings the crazies out of the woodwork, whenever some congress announcement happens.
I have high hopes for India's now approved (positive phase 3 trials) adenovirus based one even if astrozenacca's rushed repackaging of theirs as intranasal failed.
37 means it would have been the 37th running of the conference.
Food hacking or 3D printing also.
Public transport, doctors office, in my work office etc.
And the discussion around Oktoberfest was quite often in the media.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'no one cares about COVID anymore'.
I finally got covid last month. It wasn't fun, but I had worse colds. I think many people experienced the same thing, and so covid morphed from a looming, unknown horror to a known quantity.
I'm not sure this exaggeration paints the right picture.
At least in public transport is very visible
Maybe that's part of the problem...