Thread by @nzupan

A story of why #covid is/was so bad in #slovenia, and a lesson for #conference organizers. 🧵 1/10

I'm young, healthy, and triple-vaccinated, so I'm not terribly afraid of Covid. I still did my best to avoid closed/crowded spaces, and have as such avoided infection for 2.5 years. 2/10

However, I still have a job to do @teamniteo, and that involves going to conferences. I went to 6 international ones in the past year. It's the last one, held in Slovenia, where I was pretty sure I'll get Covid, and sure enough I did. 3/10

Before the Slovenian conference, I went to Liverpool, Mexico City, Italy, I've even hosted a small conference in our house, but successfully avoided infection. All it took for me to get it was just one poorly organized conference. Weakest link in the chain and all that. 4/10

A few weeks ago I was in Italy for @pyconit. It was relaxed, we had parties, they took us to try the famous Fiorentina steak, but all the while, the organizers still required masks inside. 5/10

I.e. do everything you can to have events outside, or at least in well ventilated areas, and revert to masking as a last resort. 6/10

The conference in #slovenia showed just complete disregard that we are still in a pandemic. No masks anywhere, parties inside in non-ventilated places, using busses to ferry people around instead of adjusting the schedule to enable walking, etc. 7/10

I don't blame the organizers. Everyone in #slovenia feels this way. Covid is behind us, we're back to normal. 8/10

We're not.

And not everyone can afford to expose themselves. There are still people that cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons or are otherwise vulnerable. It's just a complete dickmove to not show even a tiny bit of consideration towards them. 9/10

Was this just bad luck and I could have gotten infected on any other event? Sure, it's all a game of odds, but on the Slovenian conference, the odds were stacked against me. 10/10