The board of SCDS has made a small update to our COVID safety policy. A number of dancers have requested the ability to drink inside, particularly since the dances are thirst-making, and some have asked for eating inside. These policies address that request,

• Green (low): Only when our counties are in the green zone, allow dancers to remove masks briefly to eat or drink inside, as long as they are six feet away from others. 
• Yellow (medium) and red (high): Eating and drinking are outside-only activities at these levels We will continue to run dances when our counties are in the yellow or red zone, while strictly enforcing the rules about masking at all times while indoors.

Our counties are Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, and El Dorado. The CDC COVID Community Level data is released weekly, usually on Thursday. Note: the data on this post will not be updated, if you want to know ahead of time what the levels are, you will need to check them yourself.

• Sacramento County: medium (yellow) as of 2023-03-02
• Yolo County: medium (yellow) as of 2023-03-02
• Placer County: medium (yellow) as of 2023-03-02
• El Dorado County: medium (yellow) as of 2023-03-02

If the COVID Community Levels change, this will be announced at the dances.

There have also been requests to change our vaccination policy, but it remains unchanged. Dancers must have the normal course of vaccines, and at least one booster. This policy was established on the request of dancers, many of whom said they would not dance if the requirement were removed. We will survey our dance community again this spring, and the vaccination requirement may change based on that survey or other health information.

We encourage testing before the dance, but do not require it. We do not allow dancers to test out of the vaccination requirement, primarily because we don’t have the volunteer capacity to examine test results from multiple people at the door.

Dancers have also questioned the masking requirement, as it does make dancing less comfortable. However, our masking requirement is unchanged. We require N-95 or equivalent masks while inside the dance hall. People are welcome to step outside for fresh air. We continue to ventilate our dance halls as much as is possible. The experience of many dance communities, both ones that require masking and those that make it optional, indicates that masking is the most important safety precaution we can take to reduce COVID transmission at our dances.

If you have danced with us, you will recognize that many in our dance community are over 50 years old, which is one of the risk factors for more serious COVID infection. We also have several people in our community who are immunocompromised and would not dance if we removed the masking requirement at this time.