(no subject)

[sorcyress]

Hey folks,

My birthday is coming up on ~Saturday~ August 28th! That's very soon! We're still in a godsbefucked pandemic and things are Bad. This is super frustrating, because at the start of the summer, I wasn't anticipating things being Bad.

Do...do I host birthday ice cream this year?

Obviously I didn't last year. (I mean, I strongly encourage people to Eat Ice Cream For My Birthday Regardless Of Location, but for the purposes of this post let's consider "host" meaning "actually gather folk in Davis Square to eat ice cream with me). But...are...things different now?

Ice cream is traditionally a bunch of folks standing around in the center of Davis Sq. It's outside, but it's eating.

If we say "we're gonna do ice cream, but we're gonna bring it over to seven hills park so there's more room to spread out" is that enough? If I say "please wear a mask whenever you are not actively consuming a food" is that enough? (Also there's no question, but wear a mask when you're inside a business obtaining an ice cream please, yes even if you're vaccinated).

I just...I miss people. I miss social events. I miss getting to have A Shindig to celebrate my birthing. And I don't know how to tell if a fully outdoor event among vaccinated¹ folk is going to be A Disaster.

Input welcome and encouraged.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Look, please don't attend my parties if you are able to get vaccinated and haven't. If you're not able to get vaxx'd because of autoimmune disorders et al, sure, but if you don't have mitigating health reasons and you haven't gotten the vaccine, please don't hang out with me this winter. I am too high of a risk vector (working in a school) to want to spend time with you.

Comments

[choco_frosh]

I am not... any of the character cards in Pandemic, come to think of it; and I'm probably way too reliant on the ability of the vaccine to protect me from whatever I throw at it,* so I'm not the person to go to for medical advice.
However, I would love to eat ice cream With you and all of the excellent Kat-friends, and I'm happy to do it unmasked in Davis Square, OR masked in a park somewhere.

* 92% (plus Con bonus or whatever) seems like really good odds; but I should probably think more about the number of times I'm gonna be rolling.

[lauradi7dw]

I do Tai Chi in Seven Hills park and feel safe being (often) the only person around wearing a mask. We do maintain some distance. My recollection of attending your gathering outside JP Licks once is that people were speaking loudly to be heard over the background noise. That might be a little worrisome if people were too close (?)

[mindways]

Microcovid.org estimates around 40 microcovids for "30ish vaccinated people unmasked outdoors at 3-foot conversational distance for an hour", which is not a lot of risk.

Talking more loudly amplifies risk up to 5x. Packing in more closely amplifies risk up to 2x, and (much worse) may partly or entirely negate the immense benefit (x1/20) of being outdoors. IIRC, previous years in Davis have involved a fair amount of very close clustering, and that'd be a bad idea, but arm's-length conversation should be fine?

But wandering to one of the two nearby playgrounds or Seven Hills Park might be a good call, to try and lower overall volume, since a noisy environment will encourage people to talk more loudly and cluster more closely.

[alltheircrimesarejust]

I will make sure I have ice cream in your honor, here in wretched Ohio.

[asrabkin]

I believe ice cream outdoors is essentially safe, and with vaccination, is very safe. The only part that seems at all risky to me is the purchasing, not the eating. But I would do it regardless, without hesitation.