Soft Re-Opening Plan

[Richard]

We are well into California's Stay At Home order, but are looking trying to stay active and forward-thinking.  At some point, MAG Lab will re-open to the public and we are working on a plan on how to do it safely and responsibly.  A couple of ideas were introduced and we would like to open it up to the greater community for input.

Thresholds for Re-Opening: On what information will we base our decisions to re-open?

• Government Agencies and Organizations: WHO, CDC, California Dept. of Public Health, or County of Los Angeles Dept. of Public Health?
• Number of new cases (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases)?
• Something else?
• Some combination of the above?

Phases of Re-Opening: Who do we re-open to? 

• Phase 1: Re-Open to current members only
• Phase 2: Re-Open to the general public

Formal Policies to enact to prevent spread of COVID19 as we re-open:  What do we do and who should do it?

• Limit number of people in the space at a given time
• Provide real-time method to count and display number of people in the space on the website
• Formal disinfection procedure carried out by designated volunteers

[Kia Kroas]

Governor Gavin Newsom released a reopening plan that we can use to see how the officials plan their to approach it: https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1255218038049255429

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/us/california-reopen-coronavirus.html

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-28/california-reopening-plan-stores-schools-first-sports-concerts-last

[Betsy]

It's good to be talking about this and planning. 

In my view, it's an easy call. We just follow the state and L.A. County Dept. of Public Health laws. That is the best way we can help our community: by staying at home and not becoming vectors of disease here, in the hardest-hit county in California. Today there were 2,383 new cases in the county. The curve has slowed but not flattened.

In Newson's new 4-stage reopening plan, Stage 1 is now.  The state's and L. A. Co's public health orders include that non-essential businesses and nonprofits are closed. After the state hits key goals, it will move to  Stage 2, when lower-risk businesses can reopen with precautions. I think we're a lower-risk place, and agree that the precautions should include frequent sanitation of high-touch surfaces.

From the L.A. Times article linked above:

"Key goals to hit before moving to Stage 2:

• Hospitalization and ICU trends are stable.
• Hospital surge capacity can meet demand.
• There’s sufficient PPE to meet demand.
• Testing capacity is sufficient to meet demand.
• There’s contact-tracing capacity statewide.

The transition to Stage 2 will occur through a statewide modification to the stay-at-home order.

Opportunity for regional variations

During Stage 2, counties may choose to relax stricter local orders at their own pace."

Our best guidance would be from L.A. County because that takes into account the local status of health care resources. Besides, we're in that jurisdiction.

So here's what I think MAG Lab should do: close until the state declares Stage 2, and then wait until L.A. County allows low-risk businesses to open. Precautions should include limiting the number of members in the space at one time, wearing masks when others are present, and sanitizing high-touch surfaces frequently. A good time to do that would be both when we arrive and  when we leave. The last one out should spray alcohol liberally on high-touch surfaces and leave them wet. 

What MAG Lab members decided to do with the "soft close" is what the state is proposing for Stage 2. We should not move beyond that until the state declares Stage 3.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, we want to be making again. No, we don't get special treatment for being a hackerspace. We are members of a larger community in crisis.

[Betsy]

At tonight's meeting, we talked more about what reopening MAG Laboratory might look like. One question was about what stages 3 and 4 look like. Here's info from

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Four-stages-reopen-California-businesses-Newsom-15231931.php

Stage 3

In this stage high-risk work places will reopen. Newsom said those include: personal care (hair and nail salons, gyms), entertainment venues (movie theaters, sports without live audiences) and in-person religious services (churches, weddings).

Stage 4

This marks the end of the stay-at-home order and reopening of the highest-risk parts of the economy including concerts, convention centers and live audience sports events. Newsom said this stage will be implemented when therapeutics to treat patient infected with COVID-19 have been developed.

[Kia Kroas]

The state of California is phasing in a light version of Stage 2 for certain counties that have seen decreased COVID-19 cases (Los Angeles Country is NOT one of them.)

But they did post updated guidelines for different industries:

https://covid19.ca.gov/industry-guidance/

For us, I think the most pertinent documents are for the office workspaces and manufacturing (it's not all that different, but manufacturing mentions PPE):

http://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/guidance-office-workspaces.pdf

https://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/guidance-manufacturing.pdf

And they have checklists to go with the guidance:

http://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/checklist-office-workspaces.pdf

http://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/checklist-manufacturing.pdf

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 10:53:39 PM UTC-7, Richard wrote:

[Betsy]

Thanks, Hong.  Good stuff to talk about at our next meeting.

The only things in these guidelines and checklists that I'd say we need to add are:

If members get sick, to let us know by texting or posting here. We may need to trace contacts that happened at the space and should at least warn other members.

When members are  at the space,

• to keep the pod bay door open with a fan running when feasible (probably not late at night for security reasons).
  
• to avoid having more than one person at a time in the poorly ventilated rooms, particularly electronics and the conference room. 

[Kia Kroas]

There is now an official reopening protocol posted by LA County public health:

http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/docs/HOO/HOO_Safer_at_Home_Order_for_Control_of_COVID_5.13.20_APPENDIX_C.pdf

It's mostly the guidance and checklist from before.

[Betsy]

For our last 2 meetings, members have talked about specific plans for when we as a space move to the next stage of reopening. We've discussed two aspects:

• A socially distant potluck to gather outside the pod bay door.
  
• We'd bring our own food and paper plates, etc., and sit far apart because we'd have to take masks off to eat.
  
• Going inside to use the bathroom or kitchen, we'd wear masks.
  
• It would be great to see everybody in person.
• Members pointed out that we should have the space straightened up beforehand, including
  
• moving the Juki sewing machine out
• I will contact Mason and various high mucky-mucks at Mt. SAC to see if we can move it to Mountie.
• I have ask my friend with a truck if she's willing. She has Mondays and Wednesdays off.
  
• We will need some strong members to move, load, unload, and move it.
  
• asking members to tidy up their equipment and parts, which have tended towards entropy as all things do.
• Resumption of curator hours
• so that general members (and potential new members) have access to the space,
  
• still with careful mask / cleaning conditions.
• There were two points of view about the curator role in reopening:
  
• It should be up to a curator whether or not to do hours again, depending on how isolated they still want to be
• Curators who don't fulfill the role of having the space open for members should  revert to general membership (i.e., give back the key).

What are your thoughts?

[Richard]

• A socially distant gathering would be great.  In addition to bringing our own food, I'm ok with getting some small packs of chips and cans of drink too.
• If we're going to tidy up the space, now would be a good time to clean out the fridge.  The baking soda at the bottom is the oldest thing in there.

[Trent]

might be good for folks to make lists of stuff they want to see cleaned/done around the space.  maybe an impromptu walk through next time theres a few folks at the shop?

-a volunteer list of things to do and by when?

-under what capacity we are opening?  do we have public hours posted? do we have member only hours (for general members)?  Occupancy restrictions?

-are tuesday meetings still going to be full online?  are future business meetings going to be full online? how about anual meeting?

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 10:53:39 PM UTC-7, Richard wrote: