The course will take place in-person in case the COVID situation does not get significantly worse as compared with the present state (August 12, around 300 new cases per working day). Now it is hard to define what exactly "significantly worse" means. Several factors as important, including new case count, case distribution (localized outbreaks vs. general increase), growth rate, etc. Hence, we reserve the right to cancel the in-person event on a very short notice. Please take this possibility into account.

In any case: if, at any point, you feel that attending the course is too risky for you, please reach out to us with a request for postponement of your in-person participation (the course is mandatory, but your attendance can be postponed into later semesters, pending an agreement with the Office for Research and Doctoral Studies). We plan to grant 100 % of these requests, no questions asked.

In case of cancellation, the in-person meeting will be replaced by a Zoom event in the planned dates of the course. However, certain (in our opinion rather interesting) parts of the course would be absent in such a scenario.

Measures

To reduce the risk of disease transmission, we plan to adopt several measures, including the following:

• You will be required to submit/sign a declaration of absence of symptoms upon arrival to the course. Please read the declaration here. If you, at any point before the start of the course, you conclude that you cannot sign the declaration, please notify us immediately.
• You are encouraged to travel to DUVOD using an individual mode of transport (a car), taking into account the administrative caveats specified in General Information section. If this is not an option for you, please take responsible hygienic precautions when travelling on public transport. In particular, we strongly encourage you to wear a facemask when taking travelling by public transport.
  • You can use the IS discussion forum if you seek someone to share a ride. Since this will be limited to course participants, it should not increase the baseline risk. :)
    
• We do not plan to mingle with the local people (which is not that much due to COVID: the course programme takes most of the time and we have a private lounge booked for the Sunday dinner, so there is not much time to mingle). When venturing outside (e.g. to a shop), please follow the general hygienic recommendations as well as orders of the local public health office ("KHS pro Jihlavský kraj"). Consider wearing a facemask when visiting a public indoor space. 
• Disinfection will be available, and you are also encouraged to bring your own hand sanitizer. Please follow the public health advice regarding the proper hand and respiratory hygiene, e.g. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public.
• During the opening session, we will devote some time to negotiating collective measures we can take to increase the safety. Some of you have indicated a willingness to adhere to stricter measures due to, e.g. sharing a household with an at-risk person. This might mean, e.g. the others to conscientiously keep the recommended distance from you, or other requests. This will be a proper time to openly voice such requests. It is expected that all of us will do our best to conform to these requests.
• Regarding facemasks: we do not plan to enforce wearing of these during indoor events, as it might be uncomfortable during the all-day programme. Still, if you wish to wear one, you are encouraged to do so. In any case, please bring your own facemask. It might come handy, e.g. if you develop respiratory symptoms while on the way to the course or if wearing is imposed by the authorities on a short notice. We can also negotiate a facemask policy for activities where maintaining the recommended distance could be difficult (say during small group discussions).