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United States Technology

CES's Justification for Keeping the Show IRL is Absolutely Unhinged (inputmag.com) 193

An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow CES 2022 is still happening in a little over a week, despite the single-largest surge in COVID-19 cases ever recorded in the United States. The electronics show will be far less enormous than usual, but not necessarily because organizers at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) wanted it to be that way. CTA president Gary Shapiro went as far as to post an extensive rant on LinkedIn (and in the Las Vegas Review-Journal) about why, exactly, CES is still happening. He says CES "will and must go on." Let's take a moment or two to read through Shapiro's op-ed. We promise it's worth the time. Here are some of our favorite ways in which the CTA president explains his reasoning:

1. If we do not cancel, we face the drumbeat of press and other critics who tell the story only through their lens of drama and big name companies. We suppose this applies to us (pretty meta of us). Anyway, it's pretty telling that Shapiro's leaning on "bad press" -- not the ongoing public health crisis -- as a reason to not cancel the show.

2. I will feel safer at CES with our vaccine and masking mandate than I do when I'm running every day errands, including food shopping! Sorry, what? CES is notorious for packing attendants in like sardines. What kind of grocery store is this man going to?

3. It may be messy. But innovation is messy. It is risky and uncomfortable. Well, sure, innovating isn't a clean process, but CES isn't actually fostering innovation. The innovation's already done before these companies arrive on the showroom floor.

4. For those who are vaccinated and willing to take the minor risk of Omicron and a quarantine, CES may be worth it. I'm sorry, did this man just refer to COVID-19 (you know, the one that's killed more than 2 million people) as a "minor risk"?
CES also said today that it will end a day earlier.
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CES's Justification for Keeping the Show IRL is Absolutely Unhinged

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  • Vaccinated risk (Score:4, Interesting)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:11PM (#62132559)

    In-person human interaction is important. No one is forcing people to go to CES.

    The risk to vaccinated and boosted under-50s is extremely low, even with Omicron. Eventually we have to accept that COVID will be endemic and that all of us will get it.

    We should meet it on our own terms, though. Vaccinated and boosted.

    • Re:Vaccinated risk (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tomz16 ( 992375 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:49PM (#62132635)

      In-person human interaction is important. No one is forcing people to go to CES.

      Yup... and what exactly is the proposed end-game here. Nobody credibly believes the threat of Covid is going away anytime soon. Delaying + cancelling + virtualizing public events totally made sense last year because we were waiting for the approval distribution of safe + effective vaccines. So now everyone in the USA who wanted a vaccine + booster has one. Everyone who wants an N95 + hand sanitizer can purchase as much as they want. So what exactly would we be waiting for today? What metric or benchmark should determine whether it's safe for people to meet in person? Or is someone seriously advocating shutting down in-person events indefinitely?

      • Re:Vaccinated risk (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Saturday January 01, 2022 @12:14AM (#62132781) Homepage
        Indefinite is not the right term, but right now Omicron cases are massively spiking and there's still a lot of Delta going around too. And that spike started even before Christmas (and we know holidays make things worse). Having an in person conference on January 5th is adding to that massive wave. Omicron appears to be less deadly and have lower hospitalization numbers than prior waves, but if you are half as likely to hospitalize people and have ten times as many people infected, you are still going to massively overwhelm hospitals. This is bad not just for the people with Covid. Hospitals are turning people away who have all sorts of regular, non-covid emergencies because they are so full of Covid patients.
        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by tomz16 ( 992375 )

          still going to massively overwhelm hospitals

          Neat, but what percentage of current hospital utilization is due to vaccinated individuals? What percentage is due to fully-vaccinated + boosted patients suffering from omicron? Kick the horse-paste-eating morons to the curb (or just let their insurance providers free-market all over their assets) and watch the hospital "problem" magically resolve itself.

          Setting up systems, rules, and restrictions simply doesn't work when there's a very large fraction of the population who are hell-bent on not following t

          • by jon3k ( 691256 )

            Neat, but what percentage of current hospital utilization is due to vaccinated individuals? What percentage is due to fully-vaccinated + boosted patients suffering from omicron?

            I can answer this for one hospital in North Carolina, got an update from my friend yesterday. They had 35 with COVID up from seven around 12/10. Currently 85% are unvaccinated, 15% are vaccinated and 0% are boosted.

      • by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Unfortunately too many people didn't get the vaccine so large outbreaks creating an influx in the hospital affects everyone.
      • Cases. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 01, 2022 @02:26AM (#62132969)
        You seem to be forgetting that we still have a healthcare system. The point of trying to stop the spread is that a percentage of people, around 2% from what I can tell, is going to wind up in the hospital. If that 2% rises to four five or even 6% or even if it just hits all at once are healthcare system gets overwhelmed, we run out of oxygen and beds, and instead of a one or two percent death rate you're looking at 10 or even 20% death rates. To say nothing of all the people who will die from other things because they can't get treatment.
      • Yup... and what exactly is the proposed end-game here.

        Same as with flu. Live with it day to day but don't act like a total fucking moron when a pandemic arrives.

    • Not EVERY in-person human interaction is important.

      Curated carefully controlled human interaction for specific, high value purposes is one thing. Mass gatherings are not that. They may be "fun" but there are ample substitute varieties of "fun" which are often more desirable, for example curated group interaction on the internet.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:16PM (#62132571)

    Sporting events, movie theaters, concerts, etc are all going on as normal. Why should CES be any different? Msmash might not have gotten the memo, but most of the world has moved on. I live right outside of Seattle, and other than the fucking masks everything is completely normal (oh, except the snow, that's kind of new)

    • by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      I think the point is how he went about defending it, maybe you could argue the point is that he felt he needed to defend it. Given CES is an industry-only event, it doesn't really fit into the other event categories you listed.
    • by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:44PM (#62132723)

      Because it should set the modern example of using technology to avoid pollution and waste.

      Absent pandemic the show would remain a polluting waste of energy.

    • Why should CES be any different?

      Probably because a senseless marketing even is pointless compared to events which are the primary income source for the people involved?

      Msmash might not have gotten the memo, but most of the world has moved on.

      Have they? I mean out pubs and restaurants are closed, our minor events require mandatory vaccinations + testing, and that's only because we're a nice enough coutnry to still host them. Try flying to Western Australia to host an event, I wish you good luck.

      The world hasn't moved on. You're just living in bubble thinking it has.

  • Eh I dunno (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:20PM (#62132573)

    I've been all in on vaccines, masks, and quarantining since the beginning. But apparently since Thanksgiving I've been under constant and direct exposure to COVID because somebody I'm living with got it around that time, as well as two other people who are always coming over to my house. And...I didn't get it. Not one symptom, tests continue to be negative. Despite being immunosuppressed even due to a kidney transplant. Perhaps the third shot does the trick? Got mine all the way back when it was first authorized for transplant recipients, 4th shot coming soon. All of my relatives have gotten really bad symptoms from it (save for the ones that are fully vaccinated, who only got very mild symptoms when they tested positive, but none of them have had the third shot yet that I know of.)

    For that reason I've made a personal decision that I'm done with quarantining. Two years of it is a long time, and I've just had enough. If other people want to do the same thing, let them make that decision for themselves. Just get an mRNA 3 shot vaccination at the minimum.

    • In my county, the people who got hospitalized from covid while vaccinated are people who either have an immune system problem, or people who got vaccinated after being exposed to the virus (that is, their spouse caught covid, and so they went out to get the vaccine right after).

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      My job was remote during the worst part of the pandemic and limited contact last year, but I was out in the world. Fully vaccinated as soon as I was able, masks, etc. always tested negative. We need to accept and fund the new normal, not hide.

      That said, I think that cruise ships have shown there is still a issue with the spread of COVID. conferences like this might be an unnecessary vector. I understand that I understand this is an existential threat for some industries, but risks must be balanced. In par

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "For that reason I've made a personal decision that I'm done with quarantining."

      But you aren't quarantining, and your justifications both ways are entirely selfish.

      " If other people want to do the same thing, let them make that decision for themselves."

      Again, entirely selfish. Quarantine is not just about you and the benefits you receive.

      "Two years of it is a long time, and I've just had enough."

      It hasn't been two years, and it's even less time for you since you haven't actually been quarantining, as evide

  • by cirby ( 2599 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @10:20PM (#62132579)

    The risk is much, MUCH lower than it used to be. The Omicron variant is incredibly mild compared to the previous ones, and it also appears to confer the same level of immunity. It's crowding out Delta and the others all across the US. The infection rate is climbing, while the rates of serious illness and death are dropping like rocks.

    You're calling for the cancellation of a major trade show, costing thousands of workers a significant amount of income each, for basically no reason.

    I work in the trade show industry, and I just found out that one of my gigs in January cancelled, because fearmongers have scared the production company. Thanks for costing me money (a significant percent of my yearly income).

    • by leonbev ( 111395 )

      Yeah... At this point, the Omicron COVID variant is already wide spread throughout most of the world. You're not really going to be slowing it's the spread by canceling CES, as the virus is already running rampant almost everywhere.

    • Yep, the media will milk this until people stop clicking and commenting in the articles. By Oct 2022, covid should be out of the news cycle and the US primaries will be in the global spotlight.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I feel for everyone in the convention industry. These last two years sucked terribly.

      The point isn't "is omicron more dangerous" than previous variants. It's a good thing omicron is less lethal. The reason for reducing spread is mutation. When more people are infected, it increases the mutation rate. From history we know that mother nature is great at coming up with new mutations. If we can take reasonable precautions to reduce the load on healthcare workers and mutation, we should carefully weigh the pros/

    • Thanks for costing me money

      So sorry to hear the pandemic has inconvenienced you.

  • don't go then (Score:2, Interesting)

    If you don't agree don't go.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Don't like it? Don't attend.

    What is with this retardation?

    • People just dont seem to understand personal responsibility. If you are afraid, dont go. Problem solved.

      • Generally, people respond to social pressures and consequences. Don't go, may not be as optional as it is suggested.

        Also, I'm fairly certain the host would change their tune if they accepted full liability for anyone getting ill there.

      • People just dont seem to understand personal responsibility. If you are afraid, dont go. Problem solved.

        Indeed no one seems to accept that if they act like a dumb shit then manage to infect someone as a result then they are personally responsible. It's like "the freedom to swing my fists ends at your nose" changed into "fuck you imma punch you in the face ass hole".

        Just because you can't see the infectious agents you're spewing doesn't mean they don't exist. None of the "personal responsibility" crowd seem

        • Go ahead. Try to eliminate human stupidity. I'd love to see how far you get. In the mean time, smart and careful people will be planning and preparing to deal with stupid people. This will mean not going to places that are risky, or by taking precautions. Everyone is responsible for themselves first. Stupidity free public spaces have yet to be invented and they likely never will be. Holding your breath or raging until people get smarter or more altruistic only hurts you and puts you in the category o

  • Unhinged? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3&gmail,com> on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:04PM (#62132663) Journal

    His reasons for going on with the show are rather trivial (making the big assumption that they're being described accurately), but the only thing here that seems remotely unhinged is the response. It's been two years since COVID-19 started, and the majority of that two million death toll (not sure where that number is coming from--should be either 5.5 million worldwide or about 1 million in the US) came before vaccines and before the Omicron variant, which by all accounts is a milder version of the disease despite crowding out the other variants. To anyone who isn't living in a bubble of fear, COVID is now very much a minor risk to anyone who is fully vaccinated. Time to come out of the bunker and rejoin the world, my friend.

    Rob

    • Re:Unhinged? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:07PM (#62132675)
      Yeah. The person who wrote the blurb is huffing and puffing any hyper ventilating about an event that he/she isn't even going to attend (or even affect him).
    • It is true that Omicron seems to be milder based on the current evidence (the evidence as of about a week ago was mixed but strongly suggested it was milder https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/omicron-mild-covid-variant-severity/621090/ [theatlantic.com] ). But right now Omicron cases spiking and there's still a lot of Delta going around too. See data here https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home [cdc.gov], and note that lots of places are not doing a good job reporting covid case counts during the holi
      • by Pluvius ( 734915 )

        As someone who is a healthcare provider in a hospital system, I can say that the whole "overwhelmed hospitals" thing is largely overblown. There are some places that are having a hard time (more with staff levels [northjersey.com] and morale than with lack of beds, especially now that we've had nearly two years to adjust to COVID's demands) but for the most part, hospitals are being utilized about as much as we are every year during this season. Hell, two or three years ago I actually had a heavier workload (though this ce

    • by Luthair ( 847766 )
      The problem is that with omicron, and a still rather large percentage of the population in many countries being unvaccinated we have a situation where the hospitals can still very easily get flooded with patients, killing themselves and preventing other treatment from happening.
  • According to the research data, for those who are triple vaccinated w Moderna or Pfizer, the risk of seripus illness is low - like the flu. We donâ(TM)t cancel events when there is a flu going around. Things are different now that we have good vaccines. People can decide whether to attend. Being fully vaccinated and boosted, I would not like it if events I want to attend are cancelled.
  • The CES is quite fucking useless. Vegas doesn't need a new crop of no tippers.
  • I mean, CES and other trade shows (as well as groups like the CTA, which run the shows) were increasingly seen as irrelevant by many people even prior to COVID-19. He's worried that another cancellation will put him in the unemployment line even faster than he feared.

  • The only reason to want meat gatherings is to get drunk on the company dime.

    Modern, efficient communications promised to make such drivel redundant but have not been sufficiently exploited. Meatbag gatherings may be "fun" but that is no reason to respect them. The enormous cost to ship and house humans and equipment is not merely financial. All the energy squandered and pollution generated by this and every other gathering which could be effectively virtualized is obscene even without spreading pandemic.

    Mea

  • "For those who are vaccinated and willing to take the minor risk of Omicron and a quarantine, CES may be worth it."
    Omicron IS a minor risk. Its effects are significantly less than the Delta or previous variants. For those vaccinated or previously infected, its effects [dallasnews.com] are roughly the same as the common cold. Stop watching CNN and cowering in fear. I'm pretty sure CES 2022 won't be nearly as packed as previous CES events, so don't worry about attending a "super spreader" event. You're probably at greater r
  • by mosb1000 ( 710161 ) <mosb1000@mac.com> on Friday December 31, 2021 @11:45PM (#62132731)

    Some people just love drama. If you don't want to go, don't go. It's as simple as that.

    • That's fine. As long as we can mark any of the idiots at this event so that we can boot them out of the hospital if resources become constrained enough that other non-idiots can no longer get the care they want.

      • Why stop there? Why not track everything everyone does so we can prioritize care based on who has done the least to end up in the hospital? It’s only fair.

        • Because people normally engage in mass stupidity at a scale that prevents healthcare from being acessible to others. You want to go Wingsuiting, more power to you. Every wingsuiter in the world having an accident at once won't cause anyone's knee surgery to be delayed.

          If a terrorists bombs a building and hurts themselves in the process they should drop to the bottom of the triage priority list for their attitude towards society.

          You want COVID, sure take responsibility for your actions. When I'm done with my

  • Are there any good sources that are separating covid case counts into symptomatic vs asymptomatic?

    There's a lot of mandatory testing going on. I'm not really worried about the number of covid cases where an asymptomatic person got a mandatory test and discovered to their complete surprise that they're positive. I'd be much more interested in the news of covid rates spiking if the source breaks out the number cases where someone got seriously ill and sought out a covid test to find out if the illness was cov

    • There are lots of people who claim to be 'following the science' but want to completely ignore evidence that does not fit their personal narrative. We are two years into this pandemic, yet it seems to be incredibly hard to get good data that might help an individual assess their own personal risk. 'Health experts' will quote spikes in case rates, hospitalizations, or deaths without giving you any details about which demographics are really the highest risks. Just like insurance companies who have detailed c
    • Are there any good sources that are separating covid case counts into symptomatic vs asymptomatic?

      Yes [jamanetwork.com]. If you had used a search engine, you would have found it without trouble.

      I'm also not going to worry about spiking covid rates until I see a source that differentiates between the rate of symptomatic cases vs the rate of asymptomatic cases that get picked up in the dragnet.

      And you're also not going to use a search engine. Turn on your brain.

      • No, you misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not asking about research papers, I'm talking about articles like this one on Slashdot that we are discussing. The article contains the statement "despite the single-largest surge in COVID-19 cases ever recorded in the United States" but doesn't clarify whether those are symptomatic cases.

        Actually, symptomatic vs asymptomatic isn't even the right metric. If someone catches what may or may not be a cold and goes to get tested, that positive still falls into the "I don'

  • If you don't want to get infected, wear a mask (or a double mask) and get boosted. If you don't care, do what you want.

    Why is this hard to understand?

  • by kenh ( 9056 ) on Saturday January 01, 2022 @01:53AM (#62132923) Homepage Journal

    The "anonymous coward" that submitted this piece littered their submission by injecting their personal opinion into their quotes from the CES CEO, making it unnecessarily difficult to discern what the CEOs argument is.

    As others have noted:

    A) no one is forcing anyone to attend
    B) we can't live in fear forever
    C) the CEO mentions their safety protocols, yet the submitter never shares them

    As I write this 15,000 people are standing in Times Square to watch gravity pull a big crystal ball to the ground, the reality is that a significant part of the population has "moved on" from COVID paranoia and has chosen to live their lives.

    We went from two weeks to bend the curve to triple-vaccinated, socially-distanced, mask-wearing lemmings doing whatever "Science" or our elected political leaders arbitrarily decide we should do, to allow them "emergency powers to save lives" yet oddly, when their dictates don't save lives, they are not held responsible...

    Live in fear, or not - it's your choice.

    • A) no one is forcing anyone to attend

      Yeah but we're also not marking the attendees for being stupid. Which we should. We need to identify the dumb people so we can let them die when hospitals are full and reducing the care available for people who actually put effort in.

      B) we can't live in fear forever

      Taking precautions such as not gathering for pointless industry circlejerking is not "fear".

      C) the CEO mentions their safety protocols, yet the submitter never shares them

      This is CES we're talking about. The "safety protocols" will be utterly pointless and used only as an excuse to further in a self defeating way increase capacity so they can pack people

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        We need to identify the dumb people

        Those would be the unvaccinated. At this point, the vaccinated are pretty well protected. Them going to CES this year is probably no more risky than it will be for them to go to CES 5 years from now, and also no more risky than driving around. COVID-19 is endemic and the vaccines are extremely effective. The continuing disaster is 99% unvaccinated people, if everyone were magically vacinnated, there wouldn't even be a news story to track anymore. Everyone that is willing to get vaccinated can get vaccina

    • The reality is that a significant part of the population has "moved on" from COVID paranoia

      What is it with the reality denial.

      Sure you can make a risk assessment and choose to take more risk, but for heaven's sake it's not COVID "paranoia". It's a real disease which is really out there, really killing people. Acting people were "paranoid" is just denying objective reality. Though that does seem to be a hobby of a significant fraction of people these days.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      The measures have saved lives. People are still dying but far far fewer than would be dying otherwise. Vaccination alone shows that the unvaccinated represent 15X as much death despite being in the minority of population.

      Though we could and should say the time has come to reap the benefits of those measures. Among the vaccinated, we have pretty well tamed it and while we can do some mitigation for those stubborn enough to refuse vaccination (e.g. masking at least slows things down and isn't some horrible b

  • by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Saturday January 01, 2022 @02:59AM (#62133015)

    If you risk tolerance is low, don't go. I'm sure there are enough people that want to go or CES would be cancelled

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      That's fine as long as we can deny these people entry to the hospital if someone else comes in with a non-stupidity related need for medical care.

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        Note that if you turned down hospital admittance for a fully vaccinated person attending CES, you probably should also turn down admittance for any motor vehicle accident, as the risks of both are in the same ball park. The unvaccinated on the other hand are taking on crazy amounts of risk compared to anything reasonable.

  • "My money is more important than your life"

  • This article presupposes a great deal of facts that are easily disputable, if not outright completely disproved. It's strange now to see the side of doom and fear of the virus to be the ones denying science when they always were the ones accusing others of this. I thing Joseph Goebbels had something to say about this strategy. "Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty."

    To those who want examples, the article erroneously conflates the danger of the castrated Omicron variant as responsible for "2

  • The latest "highly transmissible" variant is about as deadly as cotton candy if cotton candy did not contribute to diabetes.
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Your information would be highly suspect if it weren't worse.

      OTOH, if everyone is thoroughly vaccinated (including boosters if appropriate) it may, indeed, count as a "minor risk" for certain age groups. I don't believe the information is available to decide properly on that one.

      There *is* significant evidence that the most recent version is both less deadly and less injurious than the prior versions. But less doesn't mean it's not deadly or injurious. I haven't seen any good studies of just how deadly/i

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        If we ignore the unvaccinated, it's a very minor risk:
        https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-da... [cdc.gov]

        Correct that this might spread it, but I'm about out of rat's asses to give about dancing around the stubbornly unvaccinated in the US... Of course CES isn't exactly that exciting even before the pandemic shut it down.

  • Omicron has not killed 2 million. The people at the most serious risk know who they are and can stay away.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      And more to the point, are required to stay away (they require vaccination to attend, and being vaccinated brings down the risk to safer than driving currently).

  • Frankly, CES would have served themselves better by canceling. On the best of years leading up to the pandemic, some big companies had already bowed out of it. Putting on a show where even more of the big names are not going to show up is going to provide an event that looks sad and reinforces the view that CES is losing relevancy.

    That said:
    1) He views bad press as the issue because, frankly, it is the issue in this case. The press got into a justified mode of covid is disastrous, and are stuck that way eve

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