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
Last updated January 2024.
In 2024, we'll be letting go of our covid vaccination requirements to attend our events (see separate announcement). However, we'll continue to require covid testing prior to attending events. You'll be able to show a photo of a negative antigen test completed the same day at check-in.
We ask that you be self-aware about your level of wellness, and if you're sick (even a little bit), stay home no matter if you test positive for Covid or not.
It’s important to keep in mind that event dates or policies could be changed if dangerous new conditions emerge.
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 AND who are willing to take extra steps to protect others from their risk-taking behaviors.
And it’s time to say this more clearly than ever: If contracting COVID-19 isn’t within your personal risk tolerance, you absolutely should not attend Bonobo Network 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 just so 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 events going forward. We hope that together, Bonobo can continue to be a standard-bearer in responsibly mitigating and managing 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.
Given the ways the delta variant presents in infected folks, anyone who’s had active upper respiratory symptoms within 3 - 5 days of a party should take a PCR COVID test before attending the party, even if symptoms have ceased by the party start date.
2. Vaccines
As of January 2024, Bonobos are not required to be vaccinated to attend events.
3. Testing
All Bonobos attending our private parties will be required to take an antigen test administered within that day and show a time stamped photo of the negative result or present results from a PCR test administered within 48 hours of the party's start time. Members can arrive at the event with their own home antigen test or purchase a test for an additional fee. A negative result will be required to enter. Bonobos should arrive at parties masked until ready to take tests or present results. Masks should be worn until negative results are confirmed.
If a test comes back positive, the attendee in question will be entitled to a refund of their ticket and asked to leave the party.
All Bonobos in attendance will be strongly encouraged (but not required) to take a PCR test 3 - 5 days after the party (Tuesday - Thursday) regardless of symptoms to assess whether there might have been an active COVID infection in the container. Free testing is widely available in all Bay Area counties. See below for testing resources.
4. Reporting
If you test positive for COVID after an event, you’re obligated to contact anyone with whom you came into close contact. 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 seven days of an event to all event attendees. Generally speaking, we’ll also report to the wider Bonobo community, though we hold this as a lower priority than reporting to those directly exposed.