With the return of the STMA Conference as an in-person event, STMA understands that there may be concerns of safety amid rising COVID numbers, including the Delta variant. As such, STMA shared research conducted by Freeman, a global events company and one of STMA’s conference partners, and Epistemix, a computational modeling software company. According to STMA, the research shows that large in-person business events are safe and do not increase local COVID-19 case rates. The following are some of the findings:
- Risks of COVID-19 infection at events were as much as eight times less than the metro area where they were being held. For recent August events, the infection rates were as much as 95 percent lower than the U.S. at large.
- In-person business event participants are more likely to be vaccinated, reflecting a vaccination rate above 80 percent and creating vaccination coverage that drastically cuts transmission of COVID-19 at those events, regardless of the gathering size.
- Despite some concerns over the Delta variant, the majority of attendees and exhibitors want to return to in-person events, and more than 90 percent are not opposed to additional health and safety protocols to enable them to gather safely. Further, those who do not support additional protocols say they instead choose to stay home, mitigating any added risks of potential infections.
STMA staff and STMA conference partners will follow the local guidelines and encourage social distancing, mask-wearing, and vaccination among attendees. Please contact STMA at stmainfo@stma.org with any questions or concerns.
Link: Tenny, Lori. “AMID DELTA VARIANT UNCERTAINTY, NEW RESEARCH REVEALS THE SAFETY OF IN-PERSON BUSINESS EVENTS August 27, 2021.” Trade Show News Network, 27 Aug. 2021, www.tsnn.com/news/amid-delta-variant-uncertainty-new-research-reveals-safety-inperson-business-events.