Carsten,
I won't debate your whole response, but as far as mildew (actually toxic mold) in meeting rooms, IETF seems perfectly fine with that given they rebooked the same venue in Singapore after I literally was on the floor (twice) due to the mold in the meeting rooms at that venue.
I have photos of some of the ceiling tiles and when you can see that much water damage on the outside, there is a whole lot more toxic stuff on the backside. I am the canary in the coal mine when it comes to mold, but 25% of the population has the genetic predisposition to be made ill from exposure to mold - 75% of you all are lucky in that your body will recognize the mycotoxins that you breathe in and remove them. For 25% of us, they just accumulate and each subsequent exposure adds to the inflammation (note, I'm an extreme case because I have 2 major mold genotypes and one in particular tends to have the worst outcome). If you're lucky, you'll never reach the tipping point, but you can have a lot of non-specific symptoms that many folks will just blame on other things - e.g., getting older, fatigue from travel and timezone changes, etc. I did that for a long time. And, while we don't have a lot of women at IETF and statistically would have few that would be pregnant, the toxins also cross the placenta. I have a story for that as well from when I was ignorant and didn't understand the potential impact of mold exposure.
Personally, I'd rather deal with COVID again (and I'm in a high risk group and am dealing with long term impacts on my lungs) than be in a meeting venue with toxic mold. And, somewhat ironically, the cytokine storm that's triggered by COVID involves some of the same inflammatory markers (i.e., IL-6 and IL-8) as those triggered by mold exposure. So, IETF is hyper-concerned about reducing the potential for the former for IETF attendees but isn't concerned about the latter.
The super good thing about all of this is that the N95s will dramatically reduce the inhalation of the mycotoxins. So, I love the fact that if I attend IETF meetings now, I'll look normal wearing the N95. And, I'm also lucky in that I have a treatment protocol for when I've been exposed to mold. There will be a subset of the population that will get sick and spend years trying to figure out why - and it's not a coincidence that these same symptoms are those associated with long COVID - i..e, it's the same inflammatory reaction that doesn't shut down.
If anyone is interested I can provide the scientific research behind what I'm talking about (you can also go to pubmed and do your own searches). Fortunately, there's been a lot of progress in science in this area, albeit little of it has made it to the medical community. It's a complex thing to diagnose and in the end, the treatment is simple - it's primarily lifestyle choices (anti-inflammatory diet, exercise, etc.), mold avoidance and a really cheap prescription product to bind the mycotoxins.
Mary.
On Wed, Sep 7, 2022 at 8:11 AM Carsten Bormann <cabo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I have no idea what the reply-to address for this mail should have been, so I’m defaulting to a somewhat random set.
> https://www.ietf.org/blog/follow-up-to-consultation-on-covid-management-for-ietf-115/
While I don’t agree with all the conclusions, thank you for pointing the way forward.
In the middle of this very reasoned statement, one half-sentence stands out that is totally unexplainable:
>> our trajectory must be to eventually implement only the local requirements and no more.
I hope that is not becoming the official policy of the IETF.
We would not have accepted that with respect to smoking (remember the Prague discussions?), or with respect to mildew in meeting rooms.
As long as local policies are made by politicians with little reason to respect reality, we will always be in a position to make better policy, and in a matter of life-and-death, we should.
Grüße, Carsten
