Hello and happy new year to all of you in the IOI community!
This is a brief update to let you know where things are at for IOI 2022, and to remind you to think about vaccinations now. In summary:
– Whilst we are still preparing for an on-site IOI 2022 in Indonesia, we understand that many countries will need to participate online, and we are planning for this.
– We will be taking a survey of which countries expect they can / cannot travel, but this will come later – right now the environment is changing too rapidly with the omicron variant.
– The International Committee are meeting in February, and our main agenda item is to take stock of the current COVID-19 situation and update the plans for IOI 2022 accordingly. We will send you more information after this meeting.
Regarding vaccinations: if you are hoping to travel to Indonesia in August, then please do think about ensuring that your delegation members are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 if at all possible. Nobody can predict what the restrictions will be in August; however, your vaccination status may impact how you enter Indonesia and/or any transit countries, what places (e.g., restaurants or shops) you may be able to access in these countries, and even whether you are able to board flights or other forms of mass transport.
We do understand that the availability of vaccines differs between different countries (particularly for children), and we will be discussing this. However, we should work on the assumption that the IOI hosts and the International Committee cannot work around government orders that are issued for public health emergencies (i.e., COVID-19).
Therefore we urge you to not wait for updates from the International Committee or the Indonesian authorities, but instead to be thinking about vaccinations right now – especially since the time required to become fully vaccinated can take many months. Thinking about this now for your own delegation is the best way you can plan ahead to fulfil whatever international travel requirements might appear between now and IOI 2022.
Otherwise, I hope you are all well, and are managing with this new phase of the pandemic.
I hope to see you all soon,
Best regards – Ben.
PS: I am sending this to the team/deputy leaders from IOI 2021. If there is a different person from your country who should be receiving emails such as this, I would be grateful if you could let me know. Thanks!
—
Prof. Benjamin Burton
President of IOI
Computational Geometry & Topology Group
The University of Queensland, Australia