All,
A message was sent from National to Chapter leaders across the globe this morning in regard to COVID-19. Currently National and Penn-Ohio ‘s stance is to stay the course and monitor the situation in regards to upcoming mass gatherings. Obviously our priority is to protect our members, vendor business partners and guests both from the possibility of contracting the virus in their travels and suffering a financial loss due to cancellation, postponement or rescheduling. However at this time there are too many unknowns.
I am writing this note to give you a chance to weigh in on your companies policy or perhaps your personal decision to Attend or not Attend our upcoming event. We understand that there is a lot of media hype surrounding this novel influenza virus. States, local governments and senior health officials are not making it easy.
My ask is this, please reply with your stance, prediction, preventative or personal protection plans as it pertains to attending our upcoming event on April 7th and 8th. Let us know the following:
- Did you Register and intend on continuing your plans to attend?
- Have you not Registered yet while you monitor the situation?
- Have you or your company decided not to travel or invoked a travel ban on domestic travel?
- Do you stand to lose money on travel if we cancel, postpone or reschedule? (You would receive a refund or credit for a future event)
- Any other concerns you may have.
We will do our best to make a sound judgment call with your input. As of right now we intend to vote next Wednesday 3-11-20 on the correct course of action.
We thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter and welcome your feedback.
Guidance from the World Health Organization:
The basic general principles for reducing transmission of the COVID-19 virus are applicable to a mass gathering.
- People should be advised to stay away from the event if they feel ill.
- Persons who feel unwell (that is, have fever and cough) should stay at home and not attend work or school and avoid crowds until their symptoms resolve. This applies to participants as well as staff.
- Promoting appropriate hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette in mass gathering venues requires providing informational materials that reach a range of age groups and varying reading and educational levels.
- In addition, soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizers and tissues should be easily accessible in all common areas and especially at medical treatment sites at the event.
Source: https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1269109/retrieve