WorldCon this year was great for me, despite being so huge that I never even saw many folks who I know were there. I did run into lots of other folks, had some good conversations, and heard some good panels.
The best thing I did was con-adjacent: Charlie Jane Anders put on a special Writers With Drinks before 700 people in Seattle’s Town Hall with Andrea Hairston, Annalee Newitz, Darcie Little Badger, Becky Chambers, and Cecilia Tan.
Not only were the readings great – no surprise with that line up – but the audience was fabulous and enthusiastic. I felt at home in a crowd for the first time in a long time.
I came away from the whole weekend inspired about getting on with my own writing and extremely aware of how important it is for people to get together in groups. And while smaller, local meetups are certainly good, large gatherings that don’t happen as often are also key.
People have been getting together in these ways for a very long time. It’s part of who we are as a species.
But of course, things being as they are, the aftermath of WorldCon was accompanied by posts on social media and notices from the convention about Covid and other contagious viruses among the attendees.
“Con crud” has always been a thing among those who spend time at science fiction conventions. And while I recall all too well the norovirus that went around WisCon one year, most con crud comes from contagious airborne viruses like colds and flu.
I saw one post that said these days people call Covid “spicy con crud.” It makes it sound like a joke. And really, we’ve always treated con crud as a joke.
Except it isn’t funny. The risks from Covid make things much worse, but the truth is we shouldn’t be so cavalier about other kinds of viruses. Far too many of them cause things similar to Long Covid, and of course, some people are at greater risk from respiratory viruses than others.
But somehow, despite the fact that we learned (or should have learned) from the Covid pandemic that there are a number of things as a society that we can do to stop the spread of contagious airborne disease, we are still running our society on the idea that everyone is just going to get these viruses and that’s OK.
It’s not OK. We should not accept getting sick – especially with the risk of ending up with major diseases later – as the price of getting together as a social species.
I’m also fed up with the “you do you” individualistic approach to all this. As soon as one person from the con posted that they had tested positive, another person piped up to observe that they don’t go to conventions because it’s easy to get sick there, and said it in a way that implied they were a superior human being for doing so.
And others complained that everyone should have been masking.
Now I mask at such events. I also use a nasal spray when I’m going to be around crowds all day, try to eat and socialize outdoors as much as possible, and got my vaccine booster just before the con.
But I’m opposed to judging people for not being that careful. I’m tired of wearing masks, too, and it is harder for those with hearing issues to follow masked panelists.
I keep doing it because I don’t want to get sick and I’m not willing to accept that getting whatever is going around is a fact of life. I suspect other people have decided that the risk of getting sick is worth not going to all that trouble, and I’m not willing to fault them for that.
(This does not include the asshole at WorldCon who discovered he had Covid and then took his mask off in a business meeting about the con. By now everyone should know better than that. I mean, really.)
The thing is, we could get back to what we all would like to think of as normal, except better because we wouldn’t be getting sick so damn often.
I realize that, at a time when the head of the Centers for Disease Control was fired because she won’t do what the stupid man in charge of Health and Human Services says about vaccines and it seems quite possible that we might not get the updated vaccines that we need or even be able to keep getting vaccinated for Covid, it is not a very practical time to rant on this particular subject.
But I’m still gonna rant.
Obviously we need vaccines. What we really need is a push behind the kind of vaccines that will reduce transmission of Covid and other viruses. There are several being developed – mostly nasal sprays – and they would make things much easier.
And in fact, with the advent of mRNA vaccines, we can respond quickly to new viruses, if we only would.
Tests for all kinds of viruses and anti-viral treatments are also important and quite possible, with a push behind them.
But it’s not just vaccines and treatments. A major key is indoor air quality.
I note that WorldCon advertised that the Seattle Convention Center had great ventilation and filtration and so forth – state of the art. But I carry a CO2 meter to big events and while the big common areas were fine, the CO2 in the meeting rooms hit 1400 ppm or so – a very high number that means people were breathing each other’s lung exhalations (so if anyone was sick, others were exposed).
CO2 is a useful proxy for viruses, since it tells you the odds that you’re breathing them in if someone around you is sick. There’s also substantial science that shows that high CO2 levels interfere with your thinking and make you drowsy – not permanently, but while you’re in the room.
Masks work, if people wear them, but the better solution is for venues like convention centers to give more than lip service to ventilation and filtration. There’s also ultraviolet light, which kills viruses. The tech exists and the science backs it up.
A recent book by science writer Carl Zimmer, Air-Borne, discusses the history of the research that has led to these technologies. I reviewed it here. It provides a great overview of airborne diseases and the currently available technology to deal with them.
It’s not the knowledge or technology we lack, it’s the will. In our current chaotic society, it is unlikely that the federal government will take any steps toward improving indoor air quality, especially since they’re busy destroying the outdoor air.
But states could do it. And convention centers could do it without being pushed into it by government.
So could schools, local governments, restaurants – how I’d love it if restaurants did this – gyms, hotels.
The first step is recognizing that we really don’t have to get sick all the time and that there are ways to avoid illness besides personal self sacrifice.
I know there are a million things that need fixing right now, particularly in the United States, but add this one to the list.