--On Monday, September 20, 2021 17:33 +0100 Stewart Bryant <stewart.bryant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I do not mind where it is, just that I think it should be > someplace that has not had a 17month blanket travel band and > no sign of lifting it. Stewart, As has already been pointed out, the US announced this morning that the ban is being lifted and replaced in November by a vaccination requirement. That is all the information I (at least) have right now but... * It certainly counters "no sign of lifting it" * It reinforces a main point Phillip and I (and Brian before us) have been trying to make, which is that predicting these actions, or even extrapolating from recent months to the future, is, well, not reliable ... certainly not reliable enough that one would want to made commitments with significant operational and financial implications on the basis of such predictions. * And, as both of them also pointed out, company policies may be at least as important to whether we can have a productive f2f (or even hybrid) meeting than national policies. Those company policies may be more rational and less opaque than those of many governments, but that does not make them more predictable long in advance. > Canada would be fine. Except, to generalize a bit from what Mike pointed out, every country that is "ok" because of vaccination requirements rather than travel bans has a list of conditions for people to be considered vaccinated. Usually that includes "vaccinated with a vaccine we believe in", but, as things are evolving, there may be number of doses, frequency or time since vaccination, etc. My personal guess is that WHO and/or various treaty alliances will eventually get that sorted out but I certainly would not plan based on that happening really soon. And, finally, Barbara, my comment was clearly over-broad, and there is clearly a long history in some countries of making rather fine distinctions in visa applications and entry interviews based on why you want to come. Sometimes those categories have come with conditions for entry or even what you are allowed to do once there conditioned on those categories. So, yes. And part of what makes all of this complicated is that there are tradeoffs between the best decisions from a public health standpoint (given available knowledge) and the best ones from an economic (particular business and business promotion) standpoint. That said, a hypothetical question that I really, really, hope won't happen. Suppose there is a severe COVID outbreak in the Netherlands or perhaps somewhere else in the world from which people are expected to attend between now and that meeting. And suppose the outbreak is significant enough that people in authority have concerns about superspreader events. Now (1) Want to bet on the meeting being held or foreign participants allowed? (2) Want to bet on your ability to get home, and get home without long quarantine requirements if you can go? (3) Want to bet on AT&T allowing or encouraging you to go? For IETF, as Brian says, just too complicated to predict. john best, john
