ASLOK Thoughts in the Age of Covid

Plans for attending ASLOK XXXV?

  • Wasn't planning on attending anyway...

    Votes: 46 40.0%
  • Will be there, masks or not...

    Votes: 17 14.8%
  • Will be there, but only if masks are required...

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Will be there, but only if masks aren't required...

    Votes: 4 3.5%
  • Won't be attending due to Covid, but had been planning on it pre-pandemic...

    Votes: 20 17.4%
  • Might be there - depends on how the pandemic develops by the Fall...

    Votes: 20 17.4%
  • Might be there - depends on non-pandemic things like $, vacation, spousal approval, etc...

    Votes: 7 6.1%

  • Total voters
    115
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von Marwitz

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My wife will buy a gun, learn how to shoot and use it on me if I even take a one millimeter step in the direction of ASLOK!
Practical advice:
Move a one millimeter step or two away from ASLOK in a way to get the garbage cans, the dishwasher, the lawnmower and such things in between you and ASLOK. The French call this savoir vivre... ;)

von Marwitz
 

Actionjick

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You and Wild Bill have the toughest decision to make about ASLOk since Don Greenwood asked Fish to hold it at DonCon. The considerations are much more serious than a change of venue and format.
The self centered part of me would like to see an unbroken string of ASLOks but the paranoid part sees the potential for a major disaster.

I wouldn't be attending anyway as my heart is not into it anymore but I respect those who choose to attend and those who will not attend.

The way things are developing it may be a decision you two won't have to make but best of luck with whatever is decided.

Thanks for shouldering the burden of running ASLOk all these years. Appreciate all you guys have done.
 

Actionjick

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If held players could always play in their rooms. I think that would reduce the chances of transmission, not sure by how much. Reduces the camaraderie also but better than nothing. Just a thought, have to talk it over with Captain Bacchus.
 

Actionjick

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If held players could always play in their rooms. I think that would reduce the chances of transmission, not sure by how much. Reduces the camaraderie also but better than nothing. Just a thought, have to talk it over with Captain Bacchus.
Captain Bacchus suggested that attendees just stay in their rooms and play over the phone. Sometimes I don't know when he's being sarcastic.
 

von Garvin

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Though I love the idea of going to ASLOK (I mean, who doesn't?), I get the apprehension. As for a vaccine, don't let that be decisive one way or another; we have vaccines for influenza and we still lose hundreds of thousands of at-risk people annually. I just mean, it's no guarantee even if we do have one.
So, if I go, and if I have to wear a mask when playing, that's fine. And we'd need to max out at 1 game/table.
Then there's international travel. As already stated by others already, there are in some cases mandatory isolation periods. Then again, we are 3 1/2 months away. Who knows what will happen between now and then? (My prediction is Godzilla v Mothra in August the way things are going...)
So, I think given that I'm in Canada and travel across the border is more complex than minimum move in jungle at night....well, as it stands today, I would not be able to attend. That said, if by say Mid August the curve has finally been flattened (remember that goal? slow the spread and all that?), well, then I may be able to plan a trip to Ohio for it.
All this to say: yes, I want to go. But not sure if I will be able to.
 

Jacometti

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And of course US Players will have to line up with 6 feet distance in between for their World Cup games against the few foreigners attending....

I am really concerned this will cost "us" the World Cup we fought so hard to retrieve last year.
 

Actionjick

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Also the perfect opportunity to play " blind " scenarios with a third person transmitting the moves, etc.

I guess also transmitting other things.
 
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Maurizizio

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I believe every one has is own respectable opinion. In the office where I work, we put a table at the entrance with a hand temperature sensor and a big sanitizer bottle. Everyone who enter the office has to measure the temperature and clean is hand. If the temperature is above 99 then he is not allowed to enter.
Having said that, I will participate to ASLOK. I don't have opportunities to play FtF and this is one of the three yearly tournaments/gatherings I commit to attend. If my opponent will ask me to wear the mask, I will do it. If my opponent doesn't want to wear a mask, I will respect that. If I want to wear the mask, I hope my opponents will accept it.
I don't think the vaccine will arrive to the mass consumer soon, and most probably not before ASLOK. Maybe the flights will be limited and quarantine measures will still be there. I will be sad for all the people I don't know yet and I will have to wait a year to play against to. But I try to look at the positive side of it: if there will be a lottery, I should have more chance to win!
 

Michael Dorosh

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I believe every one has is own respectable opinion. In the office where I work, we put a table at the entrance with a hand temperature sensor and a big sanitizer bottle. Everyone who enter the office has to measure the temperature and clean is hand. If the temperature is above 99 then he is not allowed to enter.
I work in health care, and this is the same level of screening we had - and we actually did away with the temperature screening a week ago as we enter a phased return to normalcy.

I see the UK is reporting that the difference between a 2 metre social distance, and a 1 metre social distance, is something like a 2% higher chance of contracting COVID, based on new research. 2% So there is talk now of easing restrictions on restaurant seating, etc.

A 1 metre spacing would allow tournament organizers that much more leeway in set up. Most gaming tables are more than a metre wide anyway.
 

Maurizizio

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I see the UK is reporting that the difference between a 2 metre social distance, and a 1 metre social distance, is something like a 2% higher chance of contracting COVID, based on new research. 2% So there is talk now of easing restrictions on restaurant seating, etc.
a bloody boxcars!!!!!
 

Evan Sherry

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Bret,
The Tampa ASL crew has not attended ASLOK since 2016. That has been a sad and devastating thing for us. That 2017 hurricane kicked our ass. In August 2019 longtime Tampa Group member, Dave "Mountain Man" Brown died and that further reduced our capability to playtest and willingness to play ASL with the intensity needed to produce Schwerpunkt. Going to ASLOK every year from 1996 through 2016 was our mission and we loved it. But, events overtook us as a gaming group. Now, with this deadly disease, the Tampa ASL Group has not played ASL since January 2020. We do not plan to play for the foreseeable future. Speaking as a fanatic, dedicated SL/ASL player who has played this great game since 1978, I feel that you have no choice but to cancel ASLOK 2020 for the good of the hobby. The attendees of ASLOK represent the true core elite of the ASL hobby. The world's greatest players gather in Cleveland each year, but we cannot in good conscience risk the lives of these great players this year. The very life of the hobby may depend upon it. Face it, veteran ASLers are now old, fat and have pre-existing health problems that make nearly every one of us (I fall into about four high risk categories myself) high risk for contracting and moreover, surviving a bout with this virus. I do not want ASLOK to skip a year, but I urge you to cancel ASLOK for this year so the players will stay healthy and be able to return to ASLOK when things are better.
 

Paul M. Weir

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I see the UK is reporting that the difference between a 2 metre social distance, and a 1 metre social distance, is something like a 2% higher chance of contracting COVID, based on new research. 2% So there is talk now of easing restrictions on restaurant seating, etc.
I'd be very, very, very cautious about laxer UK recommendations.

Ireland (RoI): 343 deaths/M
US: 372 deaths/M
UK: 627 deaths/M

The UK actions were even worse than the US, the country with the highest death toll (122k), 1/4 of the world's deaths with 1/20 of the world's population as of today.

I confess I was tempted to add a bayonet to the end of my walking stick. If I could reach someone with my stick and arm outstretched they were too close. Incidentally until a couple of weeks ago the US was better than RoI in the deaths/M, now that has reversed.

Removed profanity by Admin
 
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MAS01

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I spent a fair amount of time reading this Sunday morning:


That is why I voted "depends on finances, vacation, spousal approval". I will attend if I can, and I say this after having heart surgery 18 months ago.
 

Michael Dorosh

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I'd be very, very, very cautious about laxer UK recommendations.

Ireland (RoI): 343 deaths/M
US: 372 deaths/M
UK: 627 deaths/M
I would presume those recommendations come from science, not emotion. The former is evidenced by the use of numbers and percentages, the latter by repeating words like "very" inappropriately in the same sentence....
 

bendizoid

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We need herd immunity, that’s the best way to make it go away.
 
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