Covid-Safer Sex Work

Harm reduction for in-person workers during an ongoing pandemic

Share this guide widely. If you are a public health advocate, please consider making a statement in support of the decriminalisation of sex work. Sex work decriminalisation is the number one factor in reducing the spread of HIV.

January 2024

Intro 

This guide has been created by a sex worker in the UK who is angry and frustrated at the absence of clear public health information and mitigations for the ongoing Covid pandemic. I aim to provide clear and accessible information about what Covid is, how it affects us and the best tools we have to mitigate it. All the information in this guide is backed up by peer reviewed research and clinical trials. I also used a lot of the information provided at covid.tips and the John Snow Project, so thank you to the creators of those resources. If I am not sure about something, or if there is scientific debate, then I will make this clear.

As in person workers who cannot wear masks at our job, full service sex workers and strippers are some of the most at risk groups for poor outcomes from a Covid infection. The information here has been devised to help in person sex workers stay safer at work, but it is equally applicable to workers such as bar staff who also cannot mask whilst on shift. Covid is a class issue, and working class people are bearing the brunt of suffering from the pandemic; by sharing information and resources, we can help keep each other safe.

A note about masks: masks remain our best defence against infection. None of the mitigation strategies listed below are as effective high quality, well fitted masks, and all of them work best when paired with masking. This guide is written to help people to reduce the chances of infection when they are unable to wear masks at work. If you are able to mask at your job, or if you are able to mask outside of work, such as in shops and public transport, then it is important to do so. Please do not take the information included in this guide as a replacement for masking in situations where you are able to. Masks protect people around you, not just yourself. 

Sex workers are stigmatised as vectors of disease, but in reality we are usually experts at infection prevention and harm reduction when it comes to sexual health. In the 1980s, it was street based sex workers in Sydney who were advocating for condom use as a preventative measure against HIV infection, whilst brothel managers refused to allow the use of prophylactics in parlours. Sex workers and queer people have long been at the forefront of resistance to pandemics - we share safety information with one another from the ground up because we know that the state won’t protect us. Wearing masks whenever possible to protect each other from covid is an indispensable part of resisting the ongoing pandemic and creating a culture of collective care. The government has abandoned us to repeated Covid infections, but this does not absolve us of the need to take individual precautions to protect those around us.

What is Covid? 

Covid is a vascular disease that infects us primarily through the respiratory tract. Covid infections are caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. There is evidence that current strains of the virus are less deadly in the acute stage of infection than the variants were in 2020 and 2021. However, there is overwhelming evidence that Covid still causes serious, long term health problems like Long Covid, and it is still much more deadly than the flu. Infection also raises your risk factor for a great many health problems in the months after infection. SARS-CoV-2 is more comparable to tuberculosis than the common cold - in fact, Covid infections can reactivate latent TB.

Because Covid is a vascular disease, it can damage every organ in the body, which explains the very wide range of symptoms that people living with Long Covid can experience. Once infected, there is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 remains in the body, which can contribute to ongoing symptoms and cause serious health complications, such as T Cell ‘exhaustion’. SARS-CoV-2 also increases your risk of developing a new onset autoimmune disease by 43% in the months following the acute stage of infection.

You can catch Covid over and over. We have no lasting immunity, and the damage from infections is cumulative: each infection increases your risks of organ damage, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and death, amongst many other things. We also know from multiple studies that repeated Covid infections can increase your risk of developing Long Covid, a potentially lifelong condition for which there is currently no treatment or cure. There are around 65 million cases of Long Covid worldwide, and the number is rising.

Multiple studies show that the cumulative damage of Covid infections can occur irrespective of age, vaccination status or pre-existing conditions. Current public health messaging is that Covid is “only dangerous for the vulnerable”, but the reality is that we don’t actually know for sure why some people develop Long Covid and others do not. Young people and children are susceptible to Long Covid, and report rates similar to the elderly. Risk factors for developing Long Covid include things like: being transgender, being a cis woman, being LGBTQ, being Black/PoC and having a low income (this describes just about everyone I know and care about). Covid is a serious health risk to everyone, but especially to marginalised people. Though there is evidence that repeated vaccination prior to infection can substantially reduce your risk, people can and do develop Long Covid regardless of their vaccination status. 

Even if you recover quickly from the acute stage of illness, Covid infections damage our immune systems the months after infection, making us more susceptible to other infections. In older adults, there is also evidence that previous infection can make you more susceptible to contracting Covid again. The idea that Covid infection “tops up immunity” is harmful and contradictory. The best way to prevent infection is not by getting infected, it is by adopting layered mitigations (discussed below).

There are currently multiple variants of the virus in circulation. At the time of writing, JN.1 is the dominant variant, predicted to be dominant worldwide. There are so many different variants that it is actually possible to be infected with more than one variant at the same time. Don’t count on a recent infection to give you any lasting immunity. “Herd immunity” has always been a lie.

How does Covid transmit? 

SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne virus. This means that it transmits primarily through microscopic airborne aerosols exuded from the nose and mouth when an infectious person breathes. There is a lot of emphasis on droplet and fomite transmission (ie infectious drops from coughs and sneezes which can contaminate surfaces), and though it is possible to contract Covid this way, fomite transmission does not account for anywhere near the amount of cases that airborne aerosols do.

Airborne aerosols transmit through just talking and breathing, as well as singing, shouting and coughing. They can move much further than just six feet (unlike droplets, which are heavier and so fall to the ground by the time they have traveled six feet). Airborne aerosols move through the air like smoke, and can actually hang suspended in the indoor air for hours at a time, meaning that it is possible to catch Covid in indoor spaces even when no one else is around. Professor Linsey Marr is an expert on airborne pathogens, and has a great Twitter thread that explains airborne transmission. Because Covid is airborne, public health information that only emphasises the importance of hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes is wholly inadequate.

Hand washing is good practice, but it doesn’t provide meaningful protection against airborne viruses. In the overwhelming majority of cases, people do not catch covid from touching infected surfaces, they catch it from breathing infected air. 

Covid can be spread both asymptotically and symptomatically. A person is most contagious in the early days of their infection, before they develop symptoms. In fact, it is asymptomatic spread that accounts for the majority of transmission; this includes both presymptomatic cases and true asymptomatic cases. This means that staying home when sick, though important, will never be enough to prevent infections in and of itself. By the time you know you are sick, you are likely already part of an ongoing chain of transmission. This is why masking in public spaces such as shops, transport and doctors surgeries is so critically important. You have no way of knowing if you are carrying an asymptomatic or presymptomatic infection, and your mask will protect the people around you if you are. 

Testing and its limitations 

Due to viral mutation and the rise of different variants, lateral flow tests are extremely unreliable, and can miss up to 90% of asymptomatic infections. It’s also very possible to test negative on a lateral flow in the early days of your infection, when you do have symptoms, but your viral load is not high enough to be detected by the test.

Lateral flows do still detect some cases, so it is important to test when you can, especially if you have been in high risk settings (eg bars, restaurants). A positive result on a lateral flow test is accurate in over 99% of cases, so if the test shows positive, then you have Covid. If the test shows negative, that doesn’t mean much, as lateral flow device reliability can fall to 27% when it comes to detecting true negatives. If you are using lateral flows, wait until roughly 4-5 days post exposure before testing - this is when viral load tends to peak for later variants. The best thing is to test multiple times over a period of several days. A study found that testing twice (one test 48 hours after the first) picked up 92% of symptomatic infections, and testing three times (each test 48 hours apart) detected 75% of asymptomatic infections. Another study found that swabbing your cheeks and throat before swabbing your nose was more likely to give you an accurate result, compared to swabbing your nose only. Instructions on how to swab your mouth and nose are below.

In the UK, PCR tests are prohibitively expensive and extremely difficult to obtain, making them more or less impossible for most people. Molecular Covid tests have a similar accuracy level to PCR tests, but can be carried out at home, with results in around 30 minutes. To do a molecular test, you need a testing dock and test swabs - these aren't cheap, but they are considerably less than paying for PCR tests, and the majority of the cost goes on the testing dock. After the initial outlay, the tests themselves come to roughly £6 each. Altruan make a molecular test called Plus Life that retails for around £250 (test swabs are then about £60 for twenty). This is the cheapest option that I have found, and the Plus life kit was found to have comparable accuracy fo a PCR.

Looking at test positivity rates is not a reliable way of gauging the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK or anywhere, both because very few people test anymore, and because lateral flow tests are so unreliable at detecting newer strains of the virus. If you want to get a sense of how many people have Covid at any given time, you’re much better off checking wastewater data. When we are infected, we shed the virus in our stool, so monitoring wastewater gives a more accurate estimate of Covid rates. Funding for wastewater surveillance in England was cut in March 2022, but Wales and Scotland still publish wastewater data (pictured above).

The vaccine and its limitations 

Current mRNA Covid vaccines are very good at preventing severe illness and death in the short term, and they have undoubtedly saved millions of lives. However, they have some very significant limitations.

Current Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission. You can still catch and spread Covid irrespective of how many vaccine doses you’ve had or how recently you had them. Vaccine-induced protection from illness also wanes significantly over time. 

The vaccines are also not variant-proof; they were developed for the original strain of the virus, which now no longer exists due to viral mutation. In September of 2023, an updated version targeting the newer XBB.1.5 strain of the virus was approved. This is not a booster for previous doses, but an updated vaccine, just as the flu vaccine given each year isn’t a booster for previous doses. This means that if your last vaccine dose was before September 2023, you are not vaccinated against current Covid variants.

The government and the JVCI are withholding the vaccine from the vast majority of people in the UK - the offer of a vaccine dose for the general population was withdrawn in June 2023, and the updated vaccine is now only offered to an extremely limited number of people who fit certain eligibility criteria.

One group who are still entitled to Covid vaccines is pregnant people (this is because Covid is extremely dangerous during pregnancy, fyi). If there is a chance that you could be pregnant, this is a reliable way to access the updated vaccine. If you cannot get pregnant, you should be able to access the vaccine if you live with someone who is considered vulnerable or who has a weakened immune system.

New (and hopefully better) vaccines are currently in clinical trials - these are likely to be effective across variants, as they target a different part of the virus that does not mutate. They are also predicted to be better (though not perfect) at limiting transmission.

Mitigations

Covid mitigations are like onions: they are a matter of layers. As a general rule, the more layers you have, the better your protection from infection. This is why it doesn’t make sense to rely solely on the vaccine for protection, but rather multi-layered mitigations of which the vaccine is just one part. The Swiss Cheese Model (pictured below) illustrates how effective layered mitigations can be at preventing the spread of viruses like SARS-CoV-2.

Lots of Covid mitigations are a collective responsibility that can only be enacted by the state and public health, such as sick pay, free testing, vaccines, treatments and clean indoor air. The state has dismantled the Covid protections and monitoring systems it set up in 2020 and is currently not willing to spend money on basic mitigations at the population level. Covid is a labour rights issue (no one should have to be exposed to a deadly/disabling virus in order to pay rent), so mitigations like free testing and clean indoor air are labour rights demands.

There are still things that we can do as individuals and within our own communities though, and these mitigations are discussed below. Covid mitigations are expensive. High quality masks and tests, as well as air purifiers and time away from work, all cost money. I have made every effort to share tips that are as cheap and easily accessible as possible. Can you purchase mitigations like masks and tests in a group to share the financial burden? If masks are prohibitively expensive for you, can you look up a local Mask Bloc to see if they can provide you with free masks? If no mask bloc exists for your area, can you start one yourself?

Masks 

Masks remain our best protection against infection. Even if you cannot wear masks at work, it is important to wear them as often as possible in other situations like on public transport, in shops and most especially in healthcare facilities - what good is it to implement Covid safety in your booking with a client, only to catch Covid on the train journey home because you didn’t wear a mask?

Masks work best when everyone wears them; being the only person masked in a room full of unmasked people can go a long way to protecting you, but it is still a high risk situation. This is why the recommendation that only immunocompromised or vulnerable people need to wear them is a fundamental misinterpretation of how masks work, and very bad public health policy. Masks are a way to keep ourselves and those around us safer, collectively.

There are a range of different types of masks with drastically different levels of protection. Cloth masks provide very little protection against airborne viruses. Surgical masks are slightly better, but still very risky, especially when it comes to more transmissible strains of the virus, as they are loose and have gaps at the sides. The most effective masks are FFP2 and FFP3 masks (N95/KN95 are the American equivalents); these provide upwards of 95% filtration of airborne particles, providing they are well fitted. 3M Auras are some of the best masks for Covid prevention. Masks with head straps offer more protection than ones with ear loops. Air travels the path of least resistance, so a mask is only as good as it is well-fitting. 

FFP2/3 masks are designed to be single use, but you can reuse them a few times if you sanitise them using the paper bag method (never wash your masks as this damages their filtration). High quality masks like Auras are expensive, especially if you need to buy them regularly. If you can’t afford Auras (I often can’t) then you can customise an FFP2 using wig tape to give it a tight seal, and use a clip to fasten the ear loops at the back of your head rather than around your ears. You can even use these hacks with surgical masks - wig tape and a head strap clip on a surgical mask will greatly improve your protection. You can also cover surgical masks with a densely woven cloth mask to improve their functioning, though it’s not recommended to cover FFP3 and FFP2 masks in this way, as this can negatively impact their fit and filtration. The best mask is the one that you have access to - if all you have are surgical or cloth masks, these will always be better than nothing. 

Given the key role of asymptomatic airborne transmission, it is very important to wear masks in public for other people’s safety, as well as your own. If we care about labour rights and the safety and well being of marginalised people, then we owe it to each other to wear masks in public as often as we can.

Ventilation 

Good ventilation is crucial to slowing the spread of the virus, as SARS-CoV-2 is most transmissible in enclosed, crowded and poorly ventilated spaces. Cracking a window in your incall is a small thing to do, but it can make a big difference. If it’s too cold, opening windows for a few minutes every hour or so will help to keep the space well ventilated. The World Health Organisation has an infographic (pictured below) that explains the best ways to use ventilation to reduce the risk of transmission. If you can afford to get one, CO2 monitors are a useful tool for assessing the relative safety of the air you are in - they measure CO2, which can tell you how much “rebreathed” air there is around you. This helps you to know when you need to ventilate.

HEPA Filters

HEPA stands for high efficiency particulate air; the technology is very simple. They are a kind of filter that cleans the air by filtering out pollutants and airborne pathogens; they are very good at capturing small particles such as airborne SARS-CoV-2. In schools, HEPA air purifiers can reduce aerosols by 90% in 30 minutes. The bigger the HEPA filter, the more clean air it can provide. HEPA filters work best with the windows open when you are using them for Covid prevention; a combination of ventilation plus HEPA filtration has been shown to be extremely effective at reducing Covid transmission.

Medical grade filters are HEPA 13, but all HEPA filters are able to capture viral particles; you don’t need to have a medical grade filter in order for your HEPA to be effective against Covid. HEPA filtration is a vital part of reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and all airborne viruses.

The rate at which a HEPA purifier can provide clean air is called a Clean Air Delivery Rate, or CADR. The higher the CADR, the more air the purifier can clean in a given period of time. A ventilation system brings in new air from outside, providing a number of Air Changes per Hour (ACH); as HEPA purifiers don’t bring in new air, but filter the existing air, the rate at which they change the air in a room is known as equivalent Air Changes per Hour (eACH). ACH or eACH are a measure of how many times the entire volume of air in an indoor space is replaced or recirculated after being filtered. Studies show that six air changes per hour can reduce Covid cases by 80%.

According to the Centre for Disease Control in America, for indoor spaces to be considered Covid-safer, they need to have at least five eACH - the higher the number of air changes per hour, the better. To calculate the number of air changes a purifier can provide in an indoor space, divide the CADR of the purifier by the overall volume of the room - there’s a simple explanation of how to do this here (you don’t need to be a maths whizz).

There are quite a lot of companies that sell air purifiers, and many claim that you need technology such as ionisers for the purifier to be effective against viruses, but this isn’t true; in fact, ionisers produce ozone, which can be harmful to breathe in. In order to provide protection against Covid infections, air purifiers just need to have a fan and a HEPA filter - there’s no health risk to this, and a small purifier for home use consumes an amount of energy comparable to a phone charger. The technology is so simple that you can easily make an air purifier yourself by just buying a HEPA filter (roughly £25) and trying it to a fan (pictured).

If you have slightly more time, you can very easily make a powerful HEPA purifier yourself called a Corsi-Rosenthal box. They’re simple to build and the cost of the parts comes to roughly £100-150; not cheap, but much less than you would end up paying for a commercial purifier with a comparable CADR.

If you have the funds to buy an air purifier, in my opinion the best provider is Smart Air - this isn’t a paid promotion, I just think their purifiers provide the highest rate of clean air for the cheapest price. All their purifiers are mechanical, ie just a fan and a filter, so no harmful ionisation. Smart Air are also very good at explaining the science behind air purification in an accessible way - the knowledge base section on their website is a wealth of information. If you have a steady incall or you work from home, an air purifier is a great investment in making your workplace Covid-safer. If you work from a parlour or have no fixed workplace, Smart Air make a mini portable HEPA purifier called the QT3. In my opinion it’s the best portable purifier on the market, and can provide a meaningful extra layer of Covid-safety whilst at work or travelling. Levoit also make affordable purifiers, most of which don’t have ionisers.

A note about noise: all purifiers make noise. If this is too loud, it could disrupt your booking and make it hard to focus. The recommended noise level for purifiers in educational settings to allow for uninterrupted learning is 40dBA, so this noise level will be similar for an incall. The purifier I use in my incall has a noise level of 43dBA, which I do not find disruptive, and is easily covered by my work playlist.

Nasal spray 

A study in Argentina found that healthcare workers treating Covid positive patients had a roughly 80% reduction in Covid transmission when they used nasal spray containing iota-carrageenan four times a day. Iota-carrageenan spray is effective both before and after potential exposure, so it’s worth using it before and after seeing clients or doing high risk activities like indoor dining. In this study the healthcare workers were all masked as well, so it’s likely that the nasal spray wouldn’t be as highly effective if you are using it unmasked.

Nasal sprays shouldn’t be used every day, as they can disrupt the good bacteria in your nose and lead to rhinitis; it’s best to save them for the most high risk situations (eg incall days, air travel).

Nasal sprays with carrageenan are effective at reducing viral load if you get sick with Covid, so it’s a good idea to keep some at home to use if you need it. BHM make a spray called Nori Zite (£9), and there’s also a carrageenan spray from Boots called Dual Defence (£6).

CPC mouthwash 

Another study found that rinsing for at least one minute with mouthwash containing at least 0.07% CPC (Cetylpyridinium Chloride) was effective at reducing the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. Rinsing before and after clients/shifts could help to limit your risk of contracting Covid. Mouthwash containing CPC is effective at reducing viral load, so it’s also worth having a few bottles stored at home to use regularly if you do get sick. Crest make a mouthwash with CPC, as does Dentyl. The cost ranges from roughly £2 - 4 per bottle, depending on where you buy it.

Nasal filters 

02 nasal filters are designed to protect people from allergens in the air, but they might also provide a degree of protection against airborne viruses (to be clear, I have not found any studies on this). They offer roughly the same degree of protection as an N25 mask, which is about 20% filtration. It’s not much, but in conjunction with other individual mitigations, it could help to lessen your risk of infection when seeing clients. WoodyKnows make nasal filters in a range of different shapes and sizes - find the one that is the tightest fit in order to get maximum protection. One pack costs around £10.

BLIS K12 Probiotics 

Studies have found that regular supplementation with the probiotic Strepptococcus salivarius K12 may reduce the rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the severity of symptoms in hospitalised patients. In one Italian study, children who supplemented with BLIS K12 were less likely to develop Covid and respiratory infections generally - 0 out of 33 in the experimental group, versus 24 Covid positive cases out of 46 in the control group. Another study found that supplementation with BLIS K12 reduced the death rate in hospitalised Covid patients. Probiotics generally (not just S.salivarius K12) have been linked to quicker recovery from Covid infection. Depending on the manufacturer, a bottle of sixty lozenges costs anywhere between £15 - 30.

Saline nasal rinsing

The nose is the main route of entry for pathogens like SARS-CoV-2, so nasal rinsing after potential exposure or high risk activities might help to reduce your risk of infection by reducing viral replication. You can buy a nasal rinse kit from most pharmacies, or make one yourself using cool boiled water, salt and bicarbonate of soda. A study found that nasal rinsing and gargling can also reduce viral load and severity of symptoms if you are infected; it was even associated with a lower risk of hospitalisation.

Far UVC 

Far UVC is one of the most effective tools we have for preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2. It is also one of the most prohibitively expensive. Studies show that Far UVC light can reduce the amount of airborne pathogens in indoor spaces by upwards of 98% in five minutes. This is equivalent to roughly 184 air changes per hour in a small room.

Unlike UV light, Far UVC is safe to use in occupied spaces, as it does not penetrate beyond the outer layer of human skin. Far UVC emits a small amount of ozone, which is harmful, so it’s important to use it in conjunction with good ventilation. It is also important to follow time and distance limits - no closer than 50cm for no more than 4 hours per day.

The high cost of Far UVC lighting and the difficulty of installing it make it a responsibility for public health and employers, rather than individuals. However, there are a few portable Far UVC devices available on the market. The best I have found are the Nukit torches from Naomi Wu’s Cyber Night Market (roughly £300). When used together, these torches provide 12 watts of Far UVC lighting, which is enough to have a meaningful impact in a small room of roughly 9x12m squared. Naomi is also very good at explaining how Far UVC works as well as being upfront about its limitations. Other companies have made portable Far UVC devices, but as they are all 3 watts, it is not clear to me that they are powerful enough to meaningfully reduce airborne pathogens, especially given their high price point.

What to do if you catch Covid: making a safety plan

Like many other dangerous situations, such as escaping a fire in your home or domestic violence, Covid infections are less likely to be severe if you come up with a safety plan in advance. Clean Air Club, a volunteer run organisation in Chicago, has a great google doc that you can customise to make your own Covid positive safety plan (it is USA focused, where it’s possible to access anti viral drugs like Paxlovid, which are basically inaccessible in the UK). The People’s CDC also has an extremely in depth guide on how to prepare for a Covid infection. It’s important to think about things like:

• Can you stock up on things like mouthwash, nasal spray, high quality masks and probiotics in advance, so that you don’t have to scramble to find them once you’re already sick? CPC mouthwash and carrageenan nasal spray reduce viral load, and probiotics could help speed up your recovery.
• Can you buy or make your own saline nasal rinse in advance, to use if you test positive? Saline nasal rinses also help to reduce viral load and symptom severity
• Can you afford HEPA filters, or can you make your own?
• Resting as much as possible when positive is critical to making a full recovery. Can you put aside any money to cover bills so that you don’t need to work when sick? Rest and avoid physical exertion for as long as you are able to, even after you feel better.
• Who will take care of you when you’re sick, and how can you limit the risk of transmission to them?

Preventing Covid transmission within your household 

Recent studies have shown that it is possible to prevent infection of household contacts when someone else in the house tests positive. Infection is not inevitable, and every chain of transmission that we break is valuable. The most crucial thing you can do if possible is to have the infectious person sleep in a separate room to others in the house and wear a high quality mask whenever they leave the room. Leave food and medicines at the door to limit contact. If the infectious person needs to go out of the room, they should wear a mask with the highest filtration rate possible, ideally with a head strap, and other household members should also mask around them. Open windows and keep them open to maintain air flow, and turn on HEPA filters; these things go a long way to reducing the risk of household transmission.

Everyone should keep using lateral flow tests and remember: you are infectious with Covid for at least ten days. The guidance to end isolation after five days following a positive test is only about protecting the economy (the CEO of Delta Airlines pushed for it, fearing that a ten day quarantine period for airline staff would impact profits). Capitalism means people often have no choice but to go to work when sick (again, Covid is a labour rights issue), but everyone in the house should cancel social plans and non-essential activities whilst living with an infectious person (even if everyone is testing negative). If someone needs to leave the house to run errands, they should wear a mask at all times. It is very possible that they could be asymptomatic or presymptomatic, and the lateral flow tests have not detected the virus yet.

Sex worker organising and social meet-ups 

Sex worker only spaces are crucial; they help workers to combat isolation and danger in one of the most stigmatised jobs, as well as being an entry point for those who want to get involved in sex worker labour rights organising.

However, the utility of sex worker spaces is undermined considerably if going to them means we run the risk of catching and spreading Covid. What good is it to go to a sex worker event to connect with your peers, if by doing so you end up contracting Covid (or Long Covid) which takes you out of work for weeks, months or years? Sex workers do not have job security or sick pay, and many of us are *already disabled*. Covid is an accessibility issue; we must make sure to prioritise covid safety in our accessibility policies as standard, not replicate the state’s neglect. Below are some simple, practical suggestions for how we can organise covid safer meet-ups and minimise the risk of transmission at our events. The more of these suggestions we adopt, the safer our events will be.

• Can you require and provide high quality masks? Masks remain our best defence against the virus. Having a policy of “masks encouraged” means no one will wear one. Requiring masks means everyone who is medically able to will. Studies have shown that free masks, clear information about why they are important and modelling mask use by community leaders significantly increases their use. The more we normalise masking in public and at events, the easier it will be for everyone to do it.
• Can you have your event outdoors? You can still catch covid outside, especially with prolonged and close contact, or in a crowd, but the risk is (usually) less than indoors.
• If you need to host indoors, can you open every window and door to maintain good air flow and ventilation? This might mean it will be cold, but scientific evidence shows that it’s better to be cold than to catch Covid.
• Can you hire an air purifier for the event?
• Can you ask everyone to test before and after the event? Keep in mind that the rate of false negatives is extremely high, so a negative test is not a reason to forgo other mitigations
• Can you host virtual events, or provide an option for virtual attendance?
• The People’s CDC has a great guide to safer in-person events that goes into much more detail.

Mask up when you can. Infection is not inevitable. We keep us safe