ISBE Conference and COVID risk reduction
ISBE is mindful of the need to protect all our conference delegates and participants during the current pandemic circumstances and is committed to making the annual conference in 2021 as safe and secure as possible for all.
Cardiff City Hall is a large and spacious venue able, under current regulations, to accommodate an event considerably larger than the anticipated size of ISBE 2021. Cardiff City Hall has in place its own venue Risk Assessment to limit COVID infection and ISBE will be fully compliant with the provisions of that assessment.
We ask all delegates and participants to respect the importance of protecting colleagues from risk of infection. To that end our expectation is that all conference delegates will have taken up the opportunity of receiving two doses of COVID vaccine unless there are clear medical reasons to the contrary. As a further precaution we strongly advise that all delegates make use of widely available Lateral Flow (LF) test kits to undertake an LF test prior to attending the conference on each day. LF testing kits are widely available from pharmacies or can be ordered online in advance from https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests .
Only registered delegates and invited participants will be allowed into the conference. All attendees will be asked to provide contact details including a mobile phone number for contact tracing purposes, and to comply with Cardiff City Hall’s data collection activities for contact tracing requirements.
If a delegate has tested positive for COVID and/or is displaying recognised symptoms of COVID infection (persistent cough, high temperature, loss of taste or smell) then they must not continue to attend the conference; where appropriate they should take a PCR test, and obey quarantine requirements.
All delegates should feel free to wear masks if they wish during the conference. In accordance with guidance from Cardiff City Hall we ask that delegates wear face coverings when not seated and moving between conference sessions. Please also note that the wearing of face coverings is compulsory in Wales while on public transport, including taxis (i.e. they must be worn once a train crosses the border from England into Wales), and in all indoor public spaces including shops, unless you have a reasonable excuse to not do so. You do not have to wear face coverings in places where food and drink is served, such as pubs, cafes, and restaurants.
We ask all delegates to respect social distancing expectations to which other colleagues might wish to adhere. We would ask delegates not to move between different breakout rooms during track sessions, to arrive at track sessions in good time and not to enter a breakout session if all seating in the room is occupied. ISBE and Cardiff City Hall will ensure that hand sanitiser is readily available. Delegates should observe regular hand washing advice and use sanitiser before and after using laptops and AV equipment in conference rooms. We encourage delegates to bring their own hand sanitiser with them as a further precaution.
(This guidance may change if there are any revisions to official advice or regulations.)