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Is it normal in Germany to still be cancelling large events due to Covid? That certainly isn't the case in the UK and hasn't been for some time.
by mnd999 4y ago
Is it normal in Germany to still be cancelling large events due to Covid? That certainly isn't the case in the UK and hasn't been for some time.
- HarryHirsch 4y agoThe narrative that's coming out of the CDC had been shifting over the last week - get ready for Omicron V2, and Governor Pritzker and others are bringing back mask mandates. It's clear that the government knows stuff we are not ready for. Europe is ahead, as usual, with new Covid variants, so the CCC is adequately prudent.
- pabs3 4y agoIs there any good place for information about emerging variants? The ECDC page mentions a few ones being monitored but no indication of when they were first detected. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern
- pantalaimon 4y agoThere is a new law that allows for stricter Covid regulations between October and April, this can make planning large events a gamble.
- zoobab 4y agoAny link?
- rerx 4y agohttps://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/themen/coronavirus/infektionsschutzgesetz-2068856 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/themen/coronavirus/in... 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.
- rjzzleep 4y ago[flagged]
- Semaphor 4y ago> AZ vaccine until it was finally pulled off the market in Germany. What? It’s still getting used.
- rjzzleep 4y agoAfter the policy change when Germany finally got their hands on BNT(after the US bought up all the stock), doctors actively dissuaded people with heart or other conditions from getting AZ shots. EDIT: yes, there was talk about banning it after months of denial. And its my mistake for conflating other EU countries that care about their citizens with Germany, which clearly doesn't.
- Semaphor 4y agoWhich is an extremely different statement from > until it was finally pulled off the market in Germany.
- s9w 4y ago
- Semaphor 4y ago
- dividedbyzero 4y agoHow do you tag users?
- Semaphor 4y agoBrowser extension: https://github.com/veggiedefender/hn-friends https://github.com/veggiedefender/hn-friends
- fahrradflucht 4y agoIn Germany the hospitalization rates is what now indicates Covid protection measures and they surged in recent weeks.
- pantalaimon 4y agoThe official numbers: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/COVID-19-Trends/COVID-19-Trends.html?__blob=publicationFile#/home https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus...
- qwertox 4y agoYour link has outdated hospitalization data. https://www.zeit.de/wissen/aktuelle-corona-zahlen-karte-deutschland-landkreise https://www.zeit.de/wissen/aktuelle-corona-zahlen-karte-deut...
- lagrange77 4y agoDo i interpret it correctly, that the hospitalization is at it's all time high right now?
- throw827474737 4y agoYup, exactly! Nothing to see ger, go ahead, we want to be all surprised again.
- F30 4y agoCurrently, not really for most events. Big concerts, trade shows, sports games, etc. are happening without any restrictions. 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".
- avian 4y agoI was at a conference with around 1000 attendees in Germany this summer. The organizers put out a lot of recommendations for visitors regarding Covid (wear masks, be vaccinated, test yourself before and after the event, etc.), but none could be enforced on site since there was no legal basis for it. The result was that precautions were largely ignored by everyone at the event. The aftermath was that the entira orga team, most presenters on stage and (as far as I could judge by social media) a large number of attendees contracted Covid. 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.
- s9w 4y agothe whole point is that covid is no big deal. It's at best a minor flu at this point. People "contracting Covid" are irrelevant
- Fnoord 4y ago> (wear masks, be vaccinated, test yourself before and after the event, etc.) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > The result was that precautions were largely ignored by everyone at the event. 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.
- qwertox 4y agoNo, it is not normal. CCC is being proactive in that they believe that there is a chance of having the same problems as in the last congress, and they want to avoid this, because volunteers are more hesitant to get involved in a risky situation compared to employees.
- riedel 4y agoIt is quite common still to go virtual e.g. in the academic community and in any place where there are no commercial consideration or loss of money associated. (Just had the discussion today to move virtual because everyone else does as well)
- DocTomoe 4y agoThe Congress has been doing this the last two years (labelled RC3). It led to a very different experience (as random interactions just were gone (they tried to avoid this by a JRPG-style web interface)), and there was a notable drop in quality in the lectures. I don't think going virtual works for this kind of event.
- monocasa 4y agoWhat same problems, wasn't the last congress fully remote?
- GekkePrutser 4y agoAlso this is a mostly volunteer organization with a limited budget. The cost is kept very low (so everyone who wants to can participate) and no profit is made. 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.
- gsatic 4y agoNo. Oktoberfest just happened.
- rsynnott 4y agoThe CCC event is a _very_ large (about 20k people, I think?), crowded, indoor event during Peak Hospital Strain season, so it's fairly close to a worst case.
- schroeding 4y agoEven in normal times, there was always tongue-in-cheek the concept of the "Kongressseuche" (congress plague), because many people got (mildly) ill with a cold or the flu. :)
- nibbleshifter 4y agoThe 2019 Congress plague was highly likely to have been covid in some cases, a number of attendees were quite ill after the event with respiratory symptoms. Given that covid had been circulating in Europe since at least November 2019, its not implausible. Other years there were colds... The usual... But the 2019 edition was real nasty.
- lucb1e 4y agoI didn't notice anything worse during 2019 than during previous years. There were fewer calls to sanitation, if anything, or perhaps the calls didn't stand out to me anymore. Either way, while you're probably right that the earliest cases of covid were probably already there, it's not as though "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either) was because of covid, or because of covid even just that year.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago> "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either) 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.
- 4y ago
- kuschku 4y agoIt's normal for event organizers to still be careful and limit and/or cancel events. There's little government action on this nowadays (although there might be some more enforcement this winter). 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.
- grnmamba 4y ago. Germany is (sadly) not running a China-style Zero Covid plan. Assuming sarcasm
- kuschku 4y agoNo sarcasm intended. 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.
- dividedbyzero 4y agoThe Oktoberfest took place (5.7M visitors)
- turing_complete 4y agoNo, it's kinda weird.
- usrusr 4y agoNo, not at all. But the entirety of CCC isn't "normal", C3 isn't just some command line Oktoberfest. CCC identifies a lot with greater-good responsibility and that's not really compatible with the position of "I'll pretend the pandemic does not exist unless authorities force my hand" that a commercial event organizer would take.
- crazytalk 4y ago[flagged]
- f1shy 4y agoI do not tend to defend the CCC. But in this case, I think is the right call. It is just they believe it is not socially responsible. I think is a valid point of view, specially from an association which says to be socially engaged.
- fhars 4y agoYou are the one trying to force your partisan view on the volunteers who didn't want to risk their health for an event that probably wouldn't be fun anyway due to likely COVID restrictions.
- crest 4y ago
- dang 4y agoCould you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are? You've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. Fortunately you've also posted quite a few good comments, so this should be easy to fix. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y agoPlease don't post in the flamewar style. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nibbleshifter 4y agoGermany tends to be more risk averse than the UK with regards covid. 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.
- lagrange77 4y agoFor me it sends the message: We actually believe in science and scientist predict high covid numbers for the timeframe. In contrast to others, who act completely surprised, when the predictions come true.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoHigh numbers are not a problem if the healthcare is not overwhelmed. The cases have been ever less severe and even last winter the measures were much tougher than needed. We can't always keep walking on our toes because something might happen.
- throw827474737 4y agoRead a bit behind mainstream, we are not fully overloaded yet but hospitals are getting critically full, it is doctors ringing the alarm, our health care workers are still understaffed, the situation here at least is quite precarious, even if noone wants to talk about it loud.
- odiroot 4y agoI was surprised, having recently visited a hospital here in England, to find I'm the only one wearing a mask.