[Aug 25th] Please note that starting from September 1st, Belgium is lifting most restrictions on gatherings and food venues (link). We will keep the current level of restrictions in place anyway.
Travel:
Informations about travelling to Belgium from another EU country in the era of Covid can be found here (scroll down to "I do not live in Belgium"): https://www.info-coronavirus.be/en/travels/
Informations about travelling to Belgium from non-EU/non-Schengen countries can be found here: https://www.info-coronavirus.be/en/travels-outside-eu-schengen/
You will typically need to fill the Passenger Locator Form, available at https://diplomatie.belgium.be/en
Measures in place at the workshop:
- Vaccination/test status
- people joining from abroad will necessarily come after having shown at the border either a vaccination certificate (only EU-approved vaccines) or proof of a negative COVID test less than 48hours old;
- people residing in Belgium can attend without restriction: under the Belgian interpretation of GDPR law we are forbidden from asking any vaccination/test/recovery status information to Belgian residents, because the event is for less than 1500 people. However, most of participants who are resident in Belgium are very likely to be vaccinated, see next bullet;
- you can consult the detailed vaccination statistics in Belgium here https://datastudio.google.com/embed/reporting/c14a5cfc-cab7-4812-848c-0369173148ab/page/hOMwB . As of Aug.24th, the percentage of fully vaccinated adult (>=18yo) people is 82.4% (84.9% when considering "at least one shot"), and the government foresees that the percentage will still rise by the date of our workshop.
- Distancing measures
- social distancing: people will not be allowed to be at less than 1.5m from each other at all times (1.5m is the official "safety rule" in Belgium);
- masks are mandatory in all indoors venues and shared offices;
- masks are not mandatory anymore outdoors, except in crowded areas, where they are still mandatory;
- hydroalcoholic gel is available at the entrance of the university building and will be provided at the entrance of the conference hall, as well as inside the conference hall. Experimentally, it smells and dries the skin like the hospital-grade one. We request people to use it every time they want to enter the conference hall;
- in the conference hall, people will have to remain seated (except for obvious needs, e.g. entering/exiting, reaching the presentation podium, going to the bathroom, etc);
- the surfaces of the conference hall (tables, desks, etc) will be cleaned every day;
- the conference hall will be filled at 40% capacity. People will seat with at least one seat space between each other.
- coffee breaks and lunches/dinners will be conducted under the general restoration rules in Belgium as of August 2021, that is: people can take the mask and consume items only when seated at tables, and spacing of 1.5m will have to be kept at all times. People will have to put the mask on when displacing from the tables, and there is a maximum of 8 people per table.
