As we navigate the ever-changing landscape of COVID and other infectious diseases, we continue to be grateful for all the ways that our CSPC community has stepped up to help take care of each other’s safety.
In response to the changes in the COVID pandemic and public health recommendations, the Board is shifting some of these policies. We decided at our August board meeting to discontinue checks at registration for vaccination cards, effective October 1. Also at this time, we will be increasing the masking requirements at CSPC events to KN95/N95 or equivalent masks. These changes will allow our events to be more inclusive of community members who cannot be vaccinated, while also becoming safer than before from airborne transmission.
Although the vaccine requirement has been a popular safety measure, it has from its outset discriminated against people with certain allergic and immune conditions who were advised by their doctors not to be vaccinated. We all accepted this loss on the argument that requiring vaccination was limiting community spread of COVID-19, therefore making our events safer for all at the cost of excluding some.
The advent of Omicron variants, which now account for more than 99.9% of the COVID cases in our area, rapidly changed all of that. Omicron’s ability to evade immunity allowed it to spread readily through both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, creating an explosion in cases back in January.
In short, the process of checking vaccine cards has, due to mutation of the virus, become much less effective at slowing and preventing COVID spread at our events. At the same time, requiring vaccine cards has continued to completely exclude a small number of our members from participation at in-person events. Our policy change is to recognize this fact, and to allow access to those who cannot be vaccinated. The overwhelming majority of all attendees will still be vaccinated (as they always have been), and continuing to check vaccine cards would not change this fact.
To be clear, the CSPC Board still strongly recommends that everybody who is able should be vaccinated and boosted, as doing so greatly reduces your personal risk of being hospitalized or dying if you do become infected.
The change in masking policy (KN95/N95 or equivalent required beginning October 1) is meant to recognize the advice widely given by public health officials around the beginning of the Omicron outbreaks. Cloth and surgical masks are simply not as effective at preventing spread, and we can do better at protecting one another. KN95 or N95 masks will be made available at registration to those who don’t have their own KN95 or N95 mask.
We do allow people to remove masks when eating or drinking, and during scenes according to their need to use their mouth. We require that people mask up prior to leaving the scene space. The hope is to limit risks as much as we can, while still allowing a variety of play to take place.
There is also a lot that individual members can do to improve safety. We encourage people to self-screen (take COVID tests, stay home if they have a fever or other symptoms, etc.), and we will gladly move tickets out to future events when somebody tests positive or can't attend for health reasons. We hope that this will help us all do the right things and keep one another safe.
We’ve also received some questions recently around measures used to prevent the spread of other infectious diseases like monkeypox and various STIs. We use hospital-grade cleaner on play equipment, and make this available for attendees to use before and after their scenes. We also require that people put down a towel or sheet between naked skin and furniture, and we have all linens professionally cleaned between events.
It's also worth mentioning that safer sex practices can go a long way toward prevention of disease spread. We make barriers and lube available free of charge and encourage their use. We also encourage all members to exchange full information regarding risk factors during negotiation, so that everybody can consent to activities with the information they need to assess their comfort with the attendant risks.
With care, we can all help keep our community safer so that we can continue to meet together for sexy good times.
Stay safe, stay sexy,
--The CSPC Board
