Bonobo Network Covid Guidelines

By William Winters & Misha Bonaventura

Contact us at William@BonoboNetwork.com or Misha@BonoboNetwork.com

Shareable Link: https://bit.ly/bonobocovidguidelines

Become a Bonobo member: https://www.bonobonetwork.com/apply

Attribution Guidelines

This document is a gift to the community. As we ourselves stand on the shoulders of giants of sex-positive community, we aim to inspire and inform other leaders, organizers, producers, and communities in creating robust, thorough, nuanced policies that make sense for their particular communities and contexts.

This is an open source document. We appreciate your attribution when you’ve used the words or core ideas of this policy for your own community or organization.

You may use the following template on your website or documents: 

Our framework is based on the work of William Winters (william@bonobonetwork.com) & Misha Bonaventura (misha@bonobonetwork.com) of Bonobo Network, you can find their Covid Guidelines here: https://bit.ly/bonobocovidguidelines 

Context

(Updated September 2024)

Nearly 5 years after COVID appeared, its threat has substantially changed. Hospital admissions have fallen by 60% from their peak in 2021, and deaths have dropped by 80%. For most of us, a combination of vaccination and immunity from prior infection remain somewhat protective against COVID infection and phenomenally protective against the worst outcomes of the disease. It means that for most of us, an infection will mean that we’ll get sick, sometimes intensely so, but that for most of us the illness won’t lead to severe symptoms, hospitalization, or death.

In a post-vaccine world, those of us fortunate enough to be living with immunity from vaccination or previous infection now have the obligation to determine how we’ll live, how we’ll face risk, in a world where the virus is endemic. 

For some of us, however,  the risks associated with infection may still be too much to bear – due, for instance, to close proximity to folks with weakened immune systems, due to our own health risk factors such as age or pre-existing conditions, or due to the economic risk of being out of work for an extended period of time. 

We’re going to continue to produce Bonobo Network in-person parties for those people for whom contracting COVID-19 is within their personal risk tolerance, but with additional safeguards.

Despite our mitigation efforts, we want to say very clearly: If contracting COVID-19 isn’t within your personal risk tolerance, you absolutely should not attend Bonobo Network's in-person events, or you should take appropriate precautions to further limit your risk such as wearing n95 or kn95 masks, only attending outdoor parties, and limiting unmasked breath contact to trusted partners whose risk profiles match your risk tolerance. And we want to be absolutely clear: if your risk tolerance is lower than what's needed to attend Bonobo's parties for now, we're grateful that you're taking care of yourselves in the ways that you need to.

Our updated COVID strategy lays out our approach to creating in-person events going forward. We hope that together, Bonobo can continue to responsibly mitigate and manage the risk associated with inherently risky times.

We expect these guidelines to change as the pandemic changes: low disease prevalence, for instance, could mean rescinding the testing requirement. Emergence of a more dangerous variant could lead to the suspension of all in-person events. We'll constantly revisit these guidelines and evaluate them against the circumstances we face locally in the quest to keep one another safe.Nearly 5 years after COVID appeared, its threat has substantially changed. Hospital admissions have fallen by 60% from their peak in 2021, and deaths have dropped by 80%. For most of us, a combination of vaccination and immunity from prior infection remain somewhat protective against COVID infection and phenomenally protective against the worst outcomes of the disease. It means that for most of us, an infection will mean that we’ll get sick, sometimes intensely so, but that for most of us the illness won’t lead to severe symptoms, hospitalization, or death.

In a post-vaccine world, those of us fortunate enough to be living with immunity from vaccination or previous infection now have the obligation to determine how we’ll live, how we’ll face risk, in a world where the virus is endemic. 

For some of us, however,  the risks associated with infection may still be too much to bear – due, for instance, to close proximity to folks with weakened immune systems, due to our own health risk factors such as age or pre-existing conditions, or due to the economic risk of being out of work for an extended period of time. 

We’re going to continue to produce Bonobo Network in-person parties for those people for whom contracting COVID-19 is within their personal risk tolerance, but with additional safeguards.

Despite our mitigation efforts, we want to say very clearly: If contracting COVID-19 isn’t within your personal risk tolerance, you absolutely should not attend Bonobo Network's in-person events, or you should take appropriate precautions to further limit your risk such as wearing n95 or kn95 masks, only attending outdoor parties, and limiting unmasked breath contact to trusted partners whose risk profiles match your risk tolerance. And we want to be absolutely clear: if your risk tolerance is lower than what's needed to attend Bonobo's parties for now, we're grateful that you're taking care of yourselves in the ways that you need to.

Our updated COVID strategy lays out our approach to creating in-person events going forward. We hope that together, Bonobo can continue to responsibly mitigate and manage the risk associated with inherently risky times.

We expect these guidelines to change as the pandemic changes: low disease prevalence, for instance, could mean rescinding the testing requirement. Emergence of a more dangerous variant could lead to the suspension of all in-person events. We'll constantly revisit these guidelines and evaluate them against the circumstances we face locally in the quest to keep one another safe.

Bonobo Covid Guidelines

1. Symptoms

No one with active upper respiratory symptoms (e.g., runny nose, sore or "tickly" throat, persistent cough, etc.) should attend a Bonobo party. We ask folks to be aware of whether additional symptoms may be present such as unexplained fatigue, muscle aches, or diarrhea.

2. Vaccines

We encourage all Bonobo members to keep up with the most recent covid vaccines, as they are updated every year. We understand that folks may time their vaccinations to give them maximum protection during particularly vulnerable or important times of the year, like during the end of year holiday season or in anticipation of a family wedding.

However, as of January 2024, vaccines will not be required for participation in Bonobo's in-person events. 

3. Testing

All Bonobos attending our private parties will be required to show a timestamped image of the results of a COVID test administered the day of the party, ideally within a couple of hours of arrival. For attendees with the means, we strongly encourage using more sensitive molecular tests such as NAAT or PCR. Otherwise, home antigen tests will suffice. 

Attendees may also arrive at the event with their own home antigen test or, if available, purchase a test from us for an additional fee. If testing onsite, Bonobos should arrive at parties masked until ready to take tests. Masks should be worn until negative results are confirmed.

If a test comes back positive, the attendee in question will be asked to leave the event. Refunds are offered according to our refund policy.

4. Reporting

We strongly encourage anyone who attends Bonobo events who tests positive for COVID within 3 days of attendance to share this information with Bonobo’s organizers as quickly as possible.

If you test positive for COVID after an event, you’re obligated to contact anyone with whom you had intimate contact. If you don't have their contact information, we ask that you share your name on our social platform so that those at highest risk can be apprised of their exposure. Otherwise we’ll ask your permission before sharing your name widely. Granting us this permission may enable other attendees to more accurately assess their own exposure risk following an event.

Bonobo organizers will report any positive COVID test results from within three days of an event via our social platform.

5. Self-care

We strongly encourage attendees to evaluate their own risk tolerance before attending Bonobo events and to use all available information to evaluate the risk profile of the event. For instance, if wastewater covid levels are high or rising in the Bay Area, that probably indicates a higher prevalence of covid across the population, which also indicates a higher likelihood that covid may slip past our protocols. 

We make n95 masks available at Bonobo parties and encourage attendees to use them during the party. During the summer months, we also host most events outdoors. Those with lower risk tolerance may want to concentrate their attendance during that time period.