We’re watching the vaccination rate climbing and the number of positive COVID-19 diagnoses declining both in Maine and across the US. And, of course(!), we’re looking for our opportunity to start dancing with you! Finally, the end of the coronavirus pandemic seems possible.
But(!) as you can imagine, contra dancing is the absolute last thing on the list of activities to resume as a pandemic ends. There’s almost no better environment for the coronavirus to spread! So we are waiting for absolutely all other activities to be considered low risk before we think about starting back up with our favorite activity.
What does that mean? Basically, if live concert venues are not running at max capacity with consensus support from the epidemiological community, then doing the same thing with aerobic activity and hand-holding thrown in doesn’t look very safe.
We will start booking bands and callers and inviting you back for face-to-face events as soon as it is deemed a low risk for the general public, regardless of individual vaccination status, to gather like we do: close together in big groups doing an aerobic activity.
Waiting for all smiles and full green in both columns; what we do is below the bottom line of this graphic in the “least safe” category.
Source: US CDC
Right now it appears that the end of this pandemic is tied to national and international COVID-19 vaccination rates. The more people who get their shots, the closer we get to contra dancing! Please get a vaccine yourself and help others to do the same.
We are following updates to guidelines from health officials like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as regulations from the City of Portland and the State of Maine. At this time, we are not considering restricted-access events only for vaccinated dancers. Once we resume, everyone’s invited! But not until that’s more safe.
We can’t wait to dance with you! Here’s hoping that conditions improve enough—and soon—so we can resume in-person events.
We miss you!
Source: City of Portland, Maine