We have spent the week carefully tracking information and the best available guidance about COVID-19 with an eye toward proceeding in the most responsible manner possible. CDC guidelines remain unchanged and do not limit domestic travel or public gatherings. We realize the situation may be different in a week—or even tomorrow. We will continue to make decisions based on Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Seattle & King County Department of Health recommendations. We will continue to update our conference website at events.compact.org/conference/covid-19 and remain in regular communication with conference attendees moving forward.

In the meantime, we still plan to hold the conference and connected events as scheduled.

We are aware that many states, university systems, and individual institutions are enacting policies restricting employee travel. We will be in the best position to make decisions and to negotiate with our vendors if we have complete information about those policies. We therefore ask that anyone who is affected by a policy restricting travel fill out this short form.

We will grant refunds to those whose travel is prevented by a public or institutional policy. Please email us at conference@compact.org to let us know if this applies to you.

Finally, while we have received questions about the coronavirus and a few cancellations, most of our 715+ attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors are still planning to attend. The message is clear. Everyone is excited to be at Compact20, and we’ll do our best to provide an exciting and healthy conference for our network.

In the event that it is not possible for us to move forward with the conference as scheduled, we will explore the possibility of rescheduling.

For us, there are difficult practical questions raised by any course of action. Most of all, though, we are concerned about the wellbeing of the people who Compact20 exists to bring together—and the people in your lives. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to be in touch with us at conference@compact.org. We are committed to doing our very best—and that means being open to your thoughts and ideas.