The Delta Variant

COVID continues to wreak havoc. For a hot second in May and June it looked like the U.S. might have turned a corner. Then the Delta variant started tearing through the unvaccinated population and break-through cases (though incredibly rare) began emerging for vaccinated folks. Hospitals started filling up, again, and now the situation looks much bleaker heading into Fall. We planners have discussed COVID at length and how to plan, well, anything, in these unprecedented times.

COVID is endemic now, meaning it’s not going away for the foreseeable future, possibly our lifetimes. We will likely all catch COVID at some point, but hopefully the vaccines will make it a non-event like the common cold or flu is currently. Thus, we cannot wait for the day when COVID is gone to gather because we could be waiting for a decade. Or forever. Shutting down life indefinitely is not practical.

That said, until younger kids can be vaccinated, many parents are understandably leery of discretionary travel. Particularly if a new strain is moving through the population. Nobody (sane) wants to expose their children to unnecessary risk.

So where does that leave us? Our current approach to the risk and changing situation is to keep maximum flexibility as long as possible, which we figure will be about two months out. This means nothing we will plan cannot be undone till approximately 8 weeks prior. We will continue to plan as if the reunion is happening, and I suggest, if you’re interested in coming, that you do the same. However, make sure any plans you make that require money are fully refundable. Most hotels and airlines have very generous and flexible cancelation policies which make this possible. COVID killed change fees, an unexpected silver lining in a very bleak cloud.

Soon we’ll ask you to RSVP, but your response is not binding, nor are we asking for money yet. We’re all still in a wait-and-see mentality. However, having more concrete numbers of who plans to attend will help out immensely on our end with figuring out costs, activities, and general logistics. A group of 10 versus a group of 50 have wildly different needs. Vegas has an enormous amount of options to accommodate all sized groups, but we still need to roughly know what sized group we’re dealing with.

So in the meantime, like us, plan as if. Feel free to reach out to one of us to express your concerns or thoughts. Once you’ve sent your RSVP and want to change your mind, should the situation ameliorate or worsen within the country, please reach out to us. Know we’re doing everything we can to stay flexible and keep costs at a minimum, while keeping an eye out for how things are trending health-wise. If, around 8 to 10 weeks out, we decide the situation is too dire to risk having a gathering, we will delay till Fall or next Spring. My personal hope is that we find ourselves in a trough next March between peaks where transmission is relatively low, hospitals are not over-whelmed, and kids can be vaccinated so parents have one less worry. But we’ll have to wait and see. COVID has taught us all to be flexible, and that’s how we’ll play it.

Just stay flexible with us, and maybe we’ll be able to have a drink together in Spring.