EAG and covid [edit: solved, I’m not attending the EAG (I’m still testing positive as of Saturday)]
I have many meetings planned for the EAG London that starts tomorrow but I’m currently testing very faintly positive for covid. I feel totally good. I’m looking for a bit of advice on what to do. I only care to do what’s best for altruistic impact. Some of my meetings are important for my current project and trying to schedule them online would delay and complicate some things a little bit. I will also need to use my laptop during meetings to take notes. I first tested positive on Monday evening, and since then all my tests were very faintly positive. No symptoms. I guess my options are roughly:
Attend the conference as normal, wear a mask when it’s not inconvenient and when I’m around many people.
Only go to 1-1s, wear a mask when I have to be inside but perhaps not during 1-1s (I find prolonged talking with a mask difficult)
Don’t go inside, have all of my 1-1s outside. Looking at google maps, there doesn’t seem to be any benches or nice places to sit just outside the venue, so I might have to ask people to sit on the floor and to use my laptop on the floor, and I don’t know how I’d charge it. Perhaps it’s better not to go if I’d have to do that.
Don’t go. I don’t mind doing that if that’s the best thing altruistically.
In all cases, I can inform all my 1-1s (I have ~18 tentatively planned) that I have covid. I can also attend only if I test negative in the morning of a day.
This would be the third EAG London in a row where I’d cancel all my meetings last minute because I might be contagious with covid, although I’m probably not and I feel totally good. This makes me a bit frustrated and biased, which is partly why I’m asking for advice here. The thing is that I think that very few people are still that careful and still test but perhaps they should be, I don’t know. There are vulnerable people and long covid can be really bad. So if I’m going to take precautions, I’d like others reading this to also test and do the same, at least if you have a reason to believe you might have covid.
I will also need to use my laptop during meetings to take notes
Might it be possible to inform your conversational partners and get their consent to either A) use some type of transcription software (such as Otter.ai), or B) use your smartphone to record the audio of the conversation so that you can take notes manually later on? This would allow you to focus fully on the conversation, but it would also remove the limitation of typing on your laptop and would thus allow you to have walking meetings.
thanks but in this case there are other reasons why I need to use the laptop and make people I meet and survey to look at my laptop. I guess I mostly want to gaze how big of a deal people think covid is nowadays.
Ugh bad luck Saulius, I totally feel your frustration. I’ve had a few covid-bouts where I tested positive for over 2 weeks. It feels really frustrating to have to miss out on important things when it’s unclear that you’re even infectious, and also unclear that others are taking similar precautions.
It sounds like you’ve made your decision but fwiw, in your position I’d tell people about my covid status and offer them outdoor meetings if they were comfortable with that.
EAG and covid [edit: solved, I’m not attending the EAG (I’m still testing positive as of Saturday)]
I have many meetings planned for the EAG London that starts tomorrow but I’m currently testing very faintly positive for covid. I feel totally good. I’m looking for a bit of advice on what to do. I only care to do what’s best for altruistic impact. Some of my meetings are important for my current project and trying to schedule them online would delay and complicate some things a little bit. I will also need to use my laptop during meetings to take notes. I first tested positive on Monday evening, and since then all my tests were very faintly positive. No symptoms. I guess my options are roughly:
Attend the conference as normal, wear a mask when it’s not inconvenient and when I’m around many people.
Only go to 1-1s, wear a mask when I have to be inside but perhaps not during 1-1s (I find prolonged talking with a mask difficult)
Don’t go inside, have all of my 1-1s outside. Looking at google maps, there doesn’t seem to be any benches or nice places to sit just outside the venue, so I might have to ask people to sit on the floor and to use my laptop on the floor, and I don’t know how I’d charge it. Perhaps it’s better not to go if I’d have to do that.
Don’t go. I don’t mind doing that if that’s the best thing altruistically.
In all cases, I can inform all my 1-1s (I have ~18 tentatively planned) that I have covid. I can also attend only if I test negative in the morning of a day.
This would be the third EAG London in a row where I’d cancel all my meetings last minute because I might be contagious with covid, although I’m probably not and I feel totally good. This makes me a bit frustrated and biased, which is partly why I’m asking for advice here. The thing is that I think that very few people are still that careful and still test but perhaps they should be, I don’t know. There are vulnerable people and long covid can be really bad. So if I’m going to take precautions, I’d like others reading this to also test and do the same, at least if you have a reason to believe you might have covid.
I think you’re likely to be contagious, even though you’re asymptomatic.
In my experience, many people express gratitude when I inform them I’m infected and offer to cancel meetings.
In terms of advice from the EA Global team we don’t have a strict policy on covid and you can use your best judgement. You may wish to test/mask.
I (Iz) would personally ask that you inform your 1:1 meeting partners and that you aren’t unmasked inside whilst still testing positive.
Thanks,
Iz
So sad that this happens to you again :(
Thanks for taking the safety measures!
This obviously doesn’t help you now, but in case you weren’t already aware, you can buy more vaccine doses now
Might it be possible to inform your conversational partners and get their consent to either A) use some type of transcription software (such as Otter.ai), or B) use your smartphone to record the audio of the conversation so that you can take notes manually later on? This would allow you to focus fully on the conversation, but it would also remove the limitation of typing on your laptop and would thus allow you to have walking meetings.
thanks but in this case there are other reasons why I need to use the laptop and make people I meet and survey to look at my laptop. I guess I mostly want to gaze how big of a deal people think covid is nowadays.
Ugh bad luck Saulius, I totally feel your frustration. I’ve had a few covid-bouts where I tested positive for over 2 weeks. It feels really frustrating to have to miss out on important things when it’s unclear that you’re even infectious, and also unclear that others are taking similar precautions.
It sounds like you’ve made your decision but fwiw, in your position I’d tell people about my covid status and offer them outdoor meetings if they were comfortable with that.