Since several major CS conferences, such as CHI and CVPR, have become COVID super spreader events (see, e.g., https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/05/11/how-scholarly-meeting-became-superspreader-event, https://twitter.com/MattNiessner/status/1541129931152826369), we are taking decisive action to not follow this trend with AutoML-Conf:
- We mandate attendees to be vaccinated (which includes a booster if eligible at the time of arrival to campus); in fact, this is a mandate of our venue, Johns Hopkins University.
- We mandate every attendee to perform an antigen test each morning; we will provide 3 such tests as part of your registration package.
- If you test positively or have any Covid symptoms, we ask that you do not attend the conference and do not otherwise socialize with conference attendees in person.
- We mandate attendees to wear masks inside (with short breaks to eat and drink) when social distance cannot be maintained; masks will be available as part of your registration package.(During plenary sessions the presenters easily maintain social distance and thus do not need to wear masks.).
- We have large facilities available and strongly encourage attendees to spread out and use the entire space. We’re working with our venue to have as many events outside as possible.