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No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

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Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#111

Post by lucb1e »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #89
schroeding wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in normal times, there was always tongue-in-cheek the concept of the "Kongressseuche" (congress plague), because many people got (mildly) ill with a cold or the flu. :)

The 2019 Congress plague was highly likely to have been covid in some cases, a number of attendees were quite ill after the event with respiratory symptoms. Given that covid had been circulating in Europe since at least November 2019, its not implausible. Other years there were colds... The usual... But the 2019 edition was real nasty.

I didn't notice anything worse during 2019 than during previous years. There were fewer calls to sanitation, if anything, or perhaps the calls didn't stand out to me anymore. Either way, while you're probably right that the earliest cases of covid were probably already there, it's not as though "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either) was because of covid, or because of covid even just that year.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#112

Post by lucb1e »

nikeee wrote: post #52
rsynnott wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CCC event is a _very_ large (about 20k people, I think?), crowded, indoor event during Peak Hospital Strain season, so it's fairly close to a worst case.

As far as I know, this year would have been at Hamburg again where the number of participants is capped to ~12k. So it would have been slightly smaller than in Leipzig.

I don't think the spreading would be reduced with fewer people if the venue is at capacity, presuming a similar people per m² regardless of the venue.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#113

Post by lucb1e »

rsync wrote: post #100

Why not permanently move ccc to the opposite season with the opposite disease load ? I never understood the Christmas holiday schedule of kongress and it has kept me from ever attending these past 20+ years … too many other commitments and too crazy a travel season …

For what it's worth, I always thought the timing was perfect. No other commitments, everyone has holidays, not a soul commuting so roads and trains are empty... the only annoying thing is that absolutely zero stores are open on the 26th so you need to think ahead to bring food for arrival day (welcome to germany, u/lucb1e on his first congress :p).

Of course, covid now changes things, but until christmas holidays are in summer (the southern hemisphere could finally have them during their winter season, perhaps we should swap it every other year?), it won't be the case that literally everyone has holidays and it works out so well again.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#114

Post by lucb1e »

Beta-7 wrote: post #106
formerly_proven wrote: post #4

I feel like it may have been a better idea to move the congress to some time in the summer, because public health restrictions in the winter don't seem to go away. We've had vaccines since early 2021, and the 2021 winter still had restrictions, now we're two years down the road and looking at another wave and another restricted winter. I don't see how it's going to be substantially different for the 2023 winter unles…

The Chaos Communication Camp happens in the summer.

Different type of event, though. Tickets are much more available for that than for Congress; it seems more people don't prefer having to camp out somewhere.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#115

Post by dividedbyzero »

happyopossum wrote: post #96
dividedbyzero wrote: post #53

I get why they do it. Oktoberfest in Munich led to a big Covid surge with hospitals filling up at a dangerous rate, and experience tells that December will be worse, so their event would almost certainly be severely downsized or altogether disallowed by the authorities. Renewed Covid restrictions are already being debated in German politics with the general expectation being that some restrictions like masks and less…

> Oktoberfest in Munich led to a big Covid surge with hospitals filling up at a dangerous rate I'm not seeing any evidence anywhere that there were 'dangerous' rates of hospitalizations, unless you consider any increase 'dangerous'. Have any facts to back that up, or is it hyperbole?

Just going off reporting in German media, I remember one statement by Minister for Health Lauterbach that hospitalizations were increasing faster than in previous waves and a couple of reports that Munich hospitals were getting ready to implement their contingency plans, shed patients to other districts etc. That did sound like a dangerous rate of increase to me, but I didn't fact-check any of this.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#116

Post by omnibrain »

pantalaimon wrote: post #57
nikeee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, this year would have been at Hamburg again where the number of participants is capped to ~12k. So it would have been slightly smaller than in Leipzig.

Which is a pity, it will be notoriously hard to get tickets. My dream would be ICC Berlin with it's spectacular architecture, it's also huge. The only drawback is that it's currently standing empty with no plans for it's future.

Trouble with ICC (besides it being closed for years now) is, that it's quite small on the inside. You could say it's a landed space ship that's smaller on the inside. You could of course also use some halls (14 & 15, because of the bridge for example) of the fairgrounds next door, but I guess all of that had already been discussed when they moved to Hamburg for the first time and when they moved to Leipzig from Hamburg.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#117

Post by dividedbyzero »

lucb1e wrote: post #111
nibbleshifter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2019 Congress plague was highly likely to have been covid in some cases, a number of attendees were quite ill after the event with respiratory symptoms. Given that covid had been circulating in Europe since at least November 2019, its not implausible. Other years there were colds... The usual... But the 2019 edition was real nasty.

I didn't notice anything worse during 2019 than during previous years. There were fewer calls to sanitation, if anything, or perhaps the calls didn't stand out to me anymore. Either way, while you're probably right that the earliest cases of covid were probably already there, it's not as though "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either) was because of covid, or because of covid even just that ye…

> "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either)

I think the "Seuche" in Congress-Seuche falls somewhere in between. I can attest that at least Congress-Seuche has been in use in the past, somewhat analogous to the annual "Wiesnseuche" flu wave in Munich during and after the Oktoberfest.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#118

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #115
happyopossum wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oktoberfest in Munich led to a big Covid surge with hospitals filling up at a dangerous rate I'm not seeing any evidence anywhere that there were 'dangerous' rates of hospitalizations, unless you consider any increase 'dangerous'. Have any facts to back that up, or is it hyperbole?

Just going off reporting in German media, I remember one statement by Minister for Health Lauterbach that hospitalizations were increasing faster than in previous waves and a couple of reports that Munich hospitals were getting ready to implement their contingency plans, shed patients to other districts etc. That did sound like a dangerous rate of increase to me, but I didn't fact-check any of this.

Lauterbach is known for making unserious and hyperbolic claims unmoored from scientific fact. A simple minded fool desperately trying to seem smart.

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#119

Post by ognarb »

rsync wrote: post #100

Why not permanently move ccc to the opposite season with the opposite disease load ? I never understood the Christmas holiday schedule of kongress and it has kept me from ever attending these past 20+ years … too many other commitments and too crazy a travel season …

Because in summer there is the ccc (short for chaos communication camp) https://events.ccc.de/camp/

Re: No Congress 2022: Looking forward to decentralized alternatives and Camp 2023

#120

Post by rzzzt »

lucb1e wrote: post #111
nibbleshifter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2019 Congress plague was highly likely to have been covid in some cases, a number of attendees were quite ill after the event with respiratory symptoms. Given that covid had been circulating in Europe since at least November 2019, its not implausible. Other years there were colds... The usual... But the 2019 edition was real nasty.

I didn't notice anything worse during 2019 than during previous years. There were fewer calls to sanitation, if anything, or perhaps the calls didn't stand out to me anymore. Either way, while you're probably right that the earliest cases of covid were probably already there, it's not as though "the congress flu" (never heard anyone call it 'plague', either) was because of covid, or because of covid even just that ye…

I vaguely remember reading about the first handful of reported infections here on HN at the very end of 2019, somewhere around NYE. It was a very strange feeling to start the year with.

It might have been this article, the earliest (relevant) mention of pneumonia cases I could find: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713

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