We have decided to put our Workers’ Liberty conference planned for 27-28 November back to April 2022.
We had our last conference, on 24-25 April, online. We managed well, considering, but decided to schedule a next conference in-person sooner than we otherwise would, in November 2021. The success of the vaccine drive made that seem workable.
The Delta variant has upset our calculations. It can spread even with high vaccination, though that vaccination keeps death tolls much lower than before.
The two weeks since schools restarted have seen, contrary to predictions, a slight fall in cases together with an increase in testing. The seasonal pattern of viruses, increased time indoors, and fading of voluntary Covid precautions, make a new rise of cases probable soon.
Maybe the rise will remain modest over winter. We don’t know. There is a serious chance that it will be severe enough to make the in-person conference difficult. We ran our summer school in July as a “hybrid” event, half in-person, half online, but that model wouldn’t work for a conference.
Better to make a decision now than throw our plans out of gear halfway through the pre-conference discussions. Better an in-person conference a bit later than another online one a bit earlier.
A number of local Workers’ Liberty groups have been meeting in-person for some time, with precautions. We will extend those meetings in-person until a big worsening of Covid conditions makes them unviable. For those meetings we can change our plans from one week to the next. For our conference we need plans well in advance.
We will use the already-booked weekend of 27-28 November to plan a political event, online or hybrid. Watch this space.
