10/07/2021
Our Attendance at UK Games Expo
The organisers at UKGE have recently announced the changes they have made to the event's regulations and guidelines in light of the recent announcements made by the UK government. Many people have commented about this and a number of people are no longer going to UKGE as a result of the changes. Below are my (Tom Lovewell's) thoughts, reasonings and responses. I can see the arguments for and against peoples responses to UKGE's announcement and think that everyone is entitled to make their own decision about attendance and be respected regardless of their decision.
Firstly, UKGE are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They were part of the UKs Trial Events structure and as a result of changes in law (assuming the UK government doesn't perform a U-turn in the next few weeks) they can no longer enforce the attendance requirements they had originally put in place, and can only have guidelines instead. It is not the organisers fault that this has happened.
Their only alternative is that they could cancel the event..... I dread to think of the financial cost this would have to them!
Given that UKGE is going to go ahead, it is now my decision whether to attend or not.
By the time the UKGE starts, it will have been nearly three weeks since I had had my second vaccination. Consequently I will be benefiting from having had a secondary immune response to Covid-19 antigens.
My education, training and experience in Immunology would be worth nothing if I did not believe that I should have a strong immunological defence against Covid-19 by this point. I would also be a hypocrite and be betraying my fellow scientists if I did not trust that the Covid-19 vaccines were effective.
I have trusted the BSG vaccination, the MMR vaccination, the Hep B vaccination, the Polio vaccination I have had in the past and there is no reason for me to change that trust now.
Consequently, I personally, will be attending UKGE, as I do not believe the risk to me will be any higher than for my everyday life, which currently includes working in a school.
However, there is an argument that even though vaccinated and having a reduced risk to myself, I could still be a carrier of Covid-19 and pose a transmission risk to others at the event who are not fully vaccinated. Thus, there will be measures I will be undertaking to reduce the risk I may pose to others.
I have read scientific articles published in Nature magazine reporting that there is some evidence that face masks can reduce the transmission of Covid-19 from infected individuals to others. Consequently, I will be wearing face-masks at UKGE for the benefit of other attendees. I will be happy to take my face mask off to talk to people directly, if asked (and as long as this won't affect others).
I will also be taking a lateral flow test every morning of the event and will endeavour to provide a picture of this along with the face masks I will be wearing over the course of the day on our Twitter account. I will also change my reusable masks throughout the day and sterilise them in the evenings.
I will be taking Nilaqua hand sanitiser with me, which I will be using throughout the event. It is an alcohol-free chemical based hand-sanitiser that provides 6-hours protection (I will be applying it more frequently than this) and has been shown to be effective against coronavirus species (yes, I read ALL the documentation for this product for my day job).
I hope this explains my standpoint for UKGE and how I plan to take the event seriously.
For those of you attending this year, I look forward to seeing you and will be demoing our games on the Boardgame Hub stand. I may even have some sneak peeks of future products to show!
For those of you not attending UKGE this year, I hope to see you at another tabletop gaming event in the future.
