Brisbane Meeting Rules

Yes, this is a joke.

Hey all! Just a quick note to update you on the change of rules for Brisbane Go Club Meetings for the next few weeks or so (hopefully).

The short version is, we will be requiring people to wear masks at meetings when not actively eating or drinking, at least until case numbers drop a bit.

The longer version:

For the last few weeks/months, we’ve been pretty chill about whether people wear masks or not. Part of this is because the risk has seemed pretty low, part of it is we generally trust our members to make their own assessment of risk based on their individual circumstances, part is distaste about telling people what to do (something we have far too much of these days). But at time of writing, QLD has nearly 400 locally acquired active cases, and all indications are that those numbers are going to continue to grow very quickly. And while, again, all indications are that the rate of serious disease is very, very low, simply being infected can seriously affect a person’s life – inability to work, etc. And as has been pointed out, go is a circumstance that is just likely to spread infections – people facing each other, only a couple feet apart, can be talking, inside so poorly ventilated, etc.

So, until case numbers drop (my current rule of thumb is to below 100, but that’s pretty arbitrarily chosen so suggestions are very welcome), we’re going to be insisting that people wear masks at meetings. We have a box of surgical masks that people are more than welcome to grab one from if they need it, and we’ll continue to provide hand sanitiser etc.

Not that this only applies to Brisbane Go Club. The QGS explicitly does not tell its clubs what to do, and encourages them to make their own assessment based on their own situations.

As always, we strongly encourage you to make your own choices based on your individual circumstances. I don’t know your life, I don’t pretend to be an expert. If you decide that going to meetings is too risky, that’s totally fine! We have a Discord server, which while it’s not as fun as playing in person, is better than playing randoms, especially with the voice chat function.

I have recently come across this tool, which helps you judge the relative risk of various outings etc. It’s of necessity going to not fit every circumstance, but taken as a starting point I think it’s pretty good?

Hope to see you all soon!

By Allan Hunt

Supreme High Overlord of the Brisbane Go Club, and owner/operator of PacifiGo, I enjoy many different types of games, really enjoy psychology and occasionally help run various go events around the place

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