To be fair, Burning Man is all about logistics. Building and destroying a city in a week doesn’t just happen.
It’s Recreational Moving. At 8am on Sunday morning everyone is up helping pack the camp up.
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Zoom calls are the ideal way to interact, well, in terms of minimizing covid transmission.
The delta variant is so much more contagious that it can be transmitted outdoors. Outdoors is still better, but it’s not a guarantee against covid transmission. And I’m doubting everyone will be outdoors the entire time, especially in dust storms.
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Oh, fully agreed: Burning Man is a big undertaking and needs serious planning skills.
I was thinking about the attendees I’ve met, who were not the organizers. As I understand the article: the organizers have said they’re not going this year.
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Live stream earlier has Air Quality Index on it in the rotating info at the top left.
Seemed to top out around 180 between 19:00 and 20:00.
151 to 200: Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
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They could be dealing with a COOP problem.
/corpses in desert heat - fun
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Well that just looks like a list of planned activities for the weekend
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I did not know this was near wildfires, and they’ll presumably be setting things on fire as well?
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I know it’s kind of a stretch, but I’d also draw parallels between the OG Woodstock and the later attempts to recreate it, particularly Woodstock '99. Every one of those went spectacularly wrong. (Let’s not over-romanticize the original, either.)
A key difference, though, is that in this one, the organizers are bugging out. I suspect most of the attendees who insist on going are the type featured on our very own Gallery of Just Plain Assholes.
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Dozens of people listening to trance.
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Ok, yes. I thought it was clear in this context I meant “ideal way to interact in person is outdoors.”
I hadn’t heard about people contracting COVID in outdoor settings with Delta! Could you provide a citation? I’d like to read more. Obviously Delta is more contagious, but given the 20-fold reduction in transmissibility in outdoor settings, I’m not sure that would factor into my risk assessment (barring research you could provide).
I’d obviously advocate for anyone going to still mask up! I’m just not seeing how an outdoor concert with no indoors for miles is a super-spreader scale event many here are making it out to be.
Oh, and some citations for indoor vs. outdoor (pre-Delta, hence my request!)
Indoor transmission 18.5x more likely than outdoor:
1 out of 318 studied transmissions were outdoor vs. indoor:
Finally, a meta-review from a year ago described frustratingly little information on this topic:
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I think a lot of people were operating off the news that a festival in Cornwall was behind a delta surge. We are not sure this is true yet however
Regardless, if I was there, I would not congregate in front of the stage where people would be packed in and the air ■■■■■. Dry desert air and social distancing might be a risk you’d be reasonable to take however. Vaccinated of course.
ETA
I said it. I said it again! And I’m not ashamed. Bring out the ban hammer! ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■
Edit again, sorry, is still linked to a surge in cases but not a new variant.
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Oh neat. Or actually surprisingly boring, and I don’t mean that in a “I’m too cool for BM” way. Just… kind of underwhelming. Some people milling around, which, fine, and… a big welded thing, so, okay, and… well, webcams never really capture what it’s like to be there.
But my dream of a pre-emptive fascist crackdown on these hippie so-and-sos seems to have come to nothing. Oh well. Still wondering where they’re all going to poop, although I’m definitely going to try to STOP thinking about that.
Fair enough. But I mean, Burning Man is in the middle of a desert. Here is the height of crowding at this event (so far)… the pictures look vastly different:
I feel like there’s a huge difference between a 53,000-person event held in a relatively tiny venue and a sprawling camp such as this.
It is thought that much of the spread at concerts is tied more to the restaurant/public transportation use, than the congregation at the outdoor event itself. I suspect people may not realize just how vast America is. For reference, here’s a 1:1 comparison between where the Cornwall event location and Burning Man… realize there’s not a establishment anywhere in the second picture, not even a gas station.
There are handy guides! It’s valuable and responsible to know how to be hygienic for everyone, should you ever find yourself camping in the great outdoors.
<link removed, it had bad information>
I guess I’m just railing against knee-jerk fearmongering.
I feel that the COVID pandemic is all about risk-assessment and risk-mitigation where it makes sense. Having an all-or-nothing attitude can be detrimental to addressing the nuance that everyone’s life situations are different.
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The Dixie fire is about 90 miles away, but the smoke from it is blowing directly towards Black Rock. Similarly, the smoke from the Caldor fire is blowing towards Carson City and Reno.
https://fire.airnow.gov/
I don’t know of any studies that definitively prove or disprove it yet, only that there are some case histories that suggest it, as does the increased transmission rate.
So, I’m wearing N95s around crowds of people outdoors.
I had something that could have been covid around the start of the lock down last year, but testing availability was very rare back then, so I don’t know one way or another. Regardless of whether it was covid I did not enjoy the experience, so I know don’t want to unnecessarily risk even the “mild” covid that you can still get if you are vaccinated.
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I mean, I get how someone would dig a hole to poop while camping. I guess its just the scale of the event. If too many people in one area are doing that all at once, there has to be different impact on the environment, right? Hopefully a lot of these people will have RVs. I can’t imagine working for the BLM, nothing they deal with ever sounds easy or sane (weren’t they they ones dealing with the guys who took over that government building by force a few years ago?)
Dunno if that is allowed - it’s a bit unclear if burying is ok.
Prohibited acts include:
…
- The discharge and dumping of grey water or black water onto the playa/ground surface
- Depositing human waste (liquid and/or solids) on the playa/ground surface
I can say that from the photo you posted, I doubt all those folks have RVs and RV toilets. Official Burning Man spends a fortune on managing human waste, pumping the chemical toilets multiple times a day.
I don’t see any reason to assume that people won’t crap all over the playa if they congregate in large groups without infrastructure. That’s not fear mongering, that’s just being cynical about human nature.
Whups, my bad! I’m removing that link. I read the headers in the article “Leave no Trace” and “Burying It Doesn’t Make It Go Away” and thought they had this covered (but they were just talking about toilet paper).
At Burning Man, you are not allowed to just dig a hole. You need to pack it out.
One would want something called a “wag bag,” which contains gelling compounds to remove odor and make handling safe: wag bags - Google Search
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The article mentioned packing out in certain environments and did mention the desert. I just hope the people going get that memo. Given the pandemic, the wildfires, and the lack of water I’m going from thinking this is a little irresponsible to actually being concerned about these folks.
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