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Greetings, Teammates.
I am excited that we can have our National Conference in person this year. I can’t wait to engage with CAP colleagues from across the organization in Louisville. Unfortunately, we will probably have an unwelcome guest in our midst at the conference — COVID-19.
I write to you today because of my work with the COVID-19 Plans Team, as an organizational leader, and your teammate. We are all tired of the pandemic and are ready to get back to normal. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is still with us, making many people sick across the country and in the world. The current variants are highly transmissible and much of the country is at the “high” level of risk, including Louisville. (www.covidactnow.org). We have seen COVID-19 continue to spread at encampments, NCSAs, in our families, and in our workplaces. And in just two weeks, we have over 800 attendees planning to come together in Louisville to connect, collaborate, and celebrate. Because we need to make informed decisions, consider the following:
- A member of the Command Team recently attended a non-CAP event at which everyone who didn’t wear a mask was infected by COVID-19.
- Our colleagues who have traveled to large gatherings outside CAP have contracted COVID-19. None of those events required masks.
- Masking at large summer activities has minimized the spread of COVID-19 and allowed us to accomplish our mission(s).
- We held a Command Council Meeting wearing masks in Washington, D.C., during a period of high transmission, and COVID-19 didn’t spread.
Based on these experiences, Centers for Disease Control information, and my role as a risk manager, the data tells me wearing masks is the prudent thing to do. CAP’s experience with multiple large activities this summer has proven that masks helped prevent attendees from getting sick. Therefore, Gen. Phelka and I have decided that masks will be required for all participants at CAP’s National Conference this year.
I know wearing masks can be controversial for some. I am as tired of COVID-19 precautions as all of you are; however, we must protect ourselves and those we care about. We know and have demonstrated at other large-scale CAP events that masking works. Personally, I don’t love wearing a mask, but I love my mom, who has COPD and is a cancer survivor; my brother, who has a rare blood disease; and my CAP friends, some of whom are older and some of whom are ill; so I do what I can. My heart tells me masking is the right thing to do, and our own results confirm that. Can we prevent all illness? No, we can’t. Can we do our best to protect those we care about? Yes, we can. In my humble opinion, masking is a small price to pay to get to connect, collaborate, and celebrate with my friends and colleagues. We’ll get through this together by adapting as we always do — I look forward to seeing you in Louisville!
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