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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 8225857" data-attributes="member: 11760">Yeah, treating the virus as a binary -- you're dead or fine -- is leaving out the roughly 10% of people who have longterm consequences, including all the ones listed above by [USER=6775188]@Dragonsbane777[/USER] (and I'm very sorry to hear you're going through all of that) but also potentially lifelong cognitive issues. Anyone unaware of these issues should <a href="https://googlethatforyou.com?q=long%20haul%20covid" target="_blank">Google "long-haul COVID</a>."The big dangers I see for conventions are two-fold:First, the virus is mutating <s>rapidly</s>. I wouldn't want to be in the convention business right now, in case, say, an Australia variant crops up in July (southern hemisphere winter, when everyone's more likely to be inside, sharing heavy viral loads with each other) which then jumps to American shores in August. We hope that the current vaccines can protect us or that they can be updated quickly enough to fight off new variants, as is done with the flu vaccine each year. But no one actually knows yet.Second, depending on the convention or conference, a lot of people prefer virtual ones. I've done two work-related conferences during the pandemic, and they're decidedly better when they can be slotted into my schedule without worrying about hotels, airfare, travel time, etc. A few weeks ago, I started my day "at" a very productive and worthwhile work conference, was able to help keep my kid on track in virtual school, did my work in the afternoon and "attended" a concert that night. I don't know that most conferences are worth traveling to in the future, unless they're in an amazing location or there are features, like a job fair, that I can't do online. (But at one of those conferences this year, I attended a virtual job fair and it was incredibly convenient and I got a job offer out of it.)Like I said earlier, I really enjoyed GenCon Online. I don't know that I would get much more out of it going in person. I've gone to more than a dozen San Diego Comic-Cons, and I may be over crowding into a large room with 100,000 strangers, recycled air or no recycled air. I'll take being able to sign up for multiple games, see panels and still be able to use a clean bathroom and not have to pay $9 for a stale pretzel.I hope GenCon and other conventions are able to continue to operate in this new environment, but I think the market's not going to go back to exactly how it was again for them any more than it will for movie theaters.</blockquote>

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