THE ROPECRAFT CHICAGO 2022 COVID-19 VACCINATION POLICY

We have a Covid-19 vaccination requirement for our guests this year and feel strongly that this is appropriate for a gathering of our size and the right choice for what we think our situation will be in May given current public health recommendations. Part of being a community is having standards, and basic respect and care for your fellow con-goers is a standard that is not up for debate for us. This requirement was disclosed up front before your ticket purchase so the below information should just be a helpful refresher!

We require all of our attendees, presenters, staff, vendors and volunteers to be up to date with their Covid-19 vaccinations using United States Center for Disease Control definitions and standards. Please see this link for more information on what “fully vaccinated” and “up to date” means to us: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html.

Here is as handy tool for determining if you are eligible for a booster: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-shot.html

If you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, a single dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine given two weeks before our event’s start date gets you covered for our purposes.

If you are eligible for more than one booster, we recommend that you do it because it is a good idea but are not requiring that you do because there is a point at which we can’t and shouldn’t get into your business regarding health and age.

If you are seeking an exemption, we need a medical note for that, either specifically that you are allergic to a vaccine component OR that you were treated with monoclonal antibodies during a Covid-19 infection in the last three months.

If you don’t meet these requirements and any future requirements put forth by the CDC for full protection, you are NOT fully vaccinated and up to date and will not be allowed to attend our event for the health and safety of all of us. Your ticket will transfer to our next event by default and you can also sell, donate or gift it to another person for this year. There are some folks at higher risk of serious illness or worse during this time and we have to choose to protect the health of those folks with every tool we have as our priority.

In addition to our vaccination requirement stated above, we also reserve the right to add additional health and safety measures for our event depending on City, State and United States public health recommendations for May 2022. It is too close for us to declare our course of action exactly, but folks should be prepared for the possibility of required masking, pre-event Covid testing, health screenings and capacity limitations. Folks should also consider utilizing masking, pre-event Covid testing, health screenings and evaluating their crowd tolerance as part of their own risk profiles generally.

Any policy decision we make will exclude some folks

Requiring the Covid-19 vaccine for a large group event follows public health policy recommendations and is current best practice per the best science we have available at the moment. This is what we are planning to do at this time. 

  • Not requiring the Covid-19 vaccine or other mitigation measures would make our convention objectively less safe for all of us and our friends and loved ones that we return to after gathering. This list of folks including immunocompromised folks who do not have access to the protection that the vaccine provides, other high risk folks generally regardless of vaccination status, and children too young to be vaccinated.
  • Only requiring Covid-19 testing before the event would not address the possibility of contracting Covid-19 while traveling to the event and then spreading it at the event, a thing that is much more likely if a person is not vaccinated against Covid-19 and traveling without other mitigation measures like masking. The current variant of Covid-19 circulating is spreading on a timeline where PCR testing isn’t capturing the data folks need and rapid testing is still being evaluated for efficacy.
  • Universal masking at the event would have drawbacks ranging from communication to accessibility to bluntly just the fun of playing and sharing facial expressions of joy with others. We are choosing to require full vaccination instead of universal masking at this time. Risk profiles as personal! We support unconditionally anyone who would wish to wear a mask at our event for health or other reasons and will have KN95 masks available at the information desk upon request.

Please remember that your vaccination protects not only you but also those around you. Likewise, please do not forget that lack of vaccination is a risk not only to an unvaccinated person but also a burden on our strained healthcare system and problem for folks needing to utilize hospital services for other reasons.