COVID vaccines are required for ages 5+, unless individuals are unable to receive the vaccine for immunocompromised reasons.
Masks are required.
This policy is rooted in community care.
We require masking at all of our events.
We require that those 5 years old and over be vaccinated including booster, unless they have an immunocompromised condition that does not allow it.
Multiple people in our community/collective have Long Covid, are immunocompromised or are elders, so this request is to ensure those beings are held in as much safety as we can offer. Masks are worn, regardless of vaccine status.
We are committed to centering disability justice and collective care, and the voices of those who hold this knowledge and life experience with this policy.
We know that no government will ever put our safety first. This is why we continued to ask that masks be worn even when vaccines became available, and why we continue to do so.
We take care of us.
If anyone in your household or pod is sick, or if there has been any family exposure to Covid, please do not attend class/events, even if vaccinated. This is not only an effort to NOT spread Covid but recognizes that our immune systems (especially those of immunocompromised people) can be more sensitive after prolonged quarantine.
This policy was created after many in depth conversations and thought.
We are choosing to keep masking as we know it is the best way to not spread Covid, and include community members that rely on this level of safety.
We are choosing to center people who can't access the vaccine, either because of age or being immunocompromised, by having abled-bodied people provide as much safety as possible. This decision was made collectively by us, people who are immunocompromised, disabled, crip, almost didn't survive having Covid, have Long Covid, and come from countries that are in vaccine apartheid. We also deeply recognize and don't negate the reality, both historically and present, of vaccine medical experimentation on BIPOC, especially as some of us are firsthand recipients of such experiences at the hands of US imperialism and US pharmaceutical companies. We are also people that honor having conversations about vaccines outside of a binary dialogue. The creation of any policy is a decision, so we are choosing to shift this conversation during a pandemic to offer care to those most vulnerable to Covid exposure, instead of viceversa that continues to put disabled people in a position where they are not given opportunity for consent regarding their safety or inclusion.
In addition, we want to acknowledge the United States government and companies' role in vaccine appartheid. Some of us are immigrants from or have ancestry from countries that have little Covid vaccine access (in the lowest 18th percentile worldwide), with almost no access unless in the ruling/wealthy class. We recognize that this is intentional and due to a long legacy of official/unofficial embargoes placed by colonialist governments upon governments they are not in support of.
We hold gratitude to those who have long offered lived examples of what our communities and world can be like when disability justice is centered and honored. We are also committed to the decentering of US citizen privilege that we all too often witness, and that comes at the expense of the global majority.
May we be in collective care and remembrance of those most vulnerable, and may their lives be valued.
Resources:
Abled Bodied Leftists Cannot Abandon Disabled Solidarity To Move On From Covid
By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha
The Pandemic Is Still Going On- And Immunocompromised People Need You To Keep Caring
By Walela Nehanda
https://www.self.com/story/pandemic-still-going-on-immunocompromised-social-solidarity
You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence
By Mia Mingus
The Children Left Behind: 140,000 lost a caregiver to Covid (2021 article)
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/children-left-140000-kids-lost-parent-covid-rcna2672