'''COVID-19''' is a disease caused by a coronavirus first discovered
in 2019. As of early 2020, it has had a serious impact on theglobal travel and convention industry, and The ensuing pandemic resulted in the cancellationof competitive SCRABBLE tournaments activities worldwide, and NASPA's implementationof color-coded guidelines that imposed a moratorium on in-person play.
'''On 2020-03-18, we [http://www.icontact-archiveNASPA's Board is not comprised of doctors or medical care providers.com/archive?c=1384631&f=6038&s=14937&m=286005&t=42bfeecf990f5ae04e8a9ea793c9a29e79393ee2e6b4b72ecef1a231ef1a0fa9 advised] all directors to cancel DO NOT predicate your medical decisions or postpone all sanctioned club and tournament activity, and to not resume until the appropriate public actions regarding your personal health authorities have recommended doing soon anything provided herein.'''
Click [[Membership#Impact_of_COVID-19_Moratorium_on_NASPA_Membership |here]] to see how the moratorium affects your NASPA membership.
This moratorium is being lifted in two phases. First, as of 2021-06-01, the addition of the new
[[#Cyan_Play|<span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> Safety Level]]
permits groups of fully vaccinated players to gather to play normally.
Second, as of 2021-09-01, the color-coded guidance will be phased out
in favour of a general requirement that events conform to all levels of official guidance.
== <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">''Cyan''</span> Play ==
Players may meet for traditional face-to-face competitive SCRABBLE using regular playing equipment, subject to the following conditions:
* For all participants (players, directors, and anyone else attending a gathering)
** All participants must have completed a government-authorized course of vaccination against COVID-19, and waited the recommended duration for it to take full effect. (For example, a participant who has received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, and then waited at least two weeks, would be eligible to participate.)
** No one who has a probable or confirmed case of any infectious disease may attend.
** No one who has had a positive COVID-19 test within the past 10 days, or who currently has any symptoms of COVID-19, may attend.
** All participants must conform with all governmental guidance concerning meetings and travel.
* For directors
** Between June 1 and June 20, the total number of participants, including staff, could not exceed 12. On or after June 21, there is no cap on the number of participants. (If governmental guidance restricts the size of gatherings, this rule should not be understood as permitting such a limit to be exceeded.)
** The location should be accessible to only the participants as much as possible - for example, a private room in a restaurant but not the main dining room.
** Directors should be careful to conform to any local public health guidance, and refrain from holding events where distancing or other guidance would not permit them to be held.
** Directors may impose stricter rules about the use of masks and face coverings, hand washing, etc. A copy of the <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> Play rules, along with any STRICTER LOCAL modifications, must be made available to players both before registration and at the playing site.
** The director must keep a list of participants, together with their current contact information, and ask them to certify in writing on arrival that they meet all the necessary criteria for play under these rules. A sample screening form can be downloaded [[Sample COVID-19 Screening Form |here]].
== Resumption of Normal Operations ==
Effective '''2021-09-01''', '''NASPA is returning to normal operations''', subject to any restrictions imposed or recommended in governmental guidance, laws or regulations.
* For Americans, this means complying with authorities such as town, city, county, tribal, territorial, state or federal government agencies (including the [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/pdfs/choosingSaferAct.pdf?v=1 CDC]).
* For Canadians, this means you should likewise consult municipal, Indigenous, provincial and federal government guidance (including [https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/awareness-resources/vaccinated-against-covid-19-public-health-measures/vaccinated-against-covid-19-public-health-measures.pdf PHAC]), and only compete where this is recommended by all levels of authority.
For example, if your town permits gatherings of the sort needed to play, but your state or province does not, you cannot play. Or if your county says unvaccinated people can meet indoors, but the CDC/PHAC (respectively) recommends social distancing indoors, you cannot play in such a group.
Members who are travelling from one jurisdiction to another must also comply with all government guidance concerning travel.
'''Directors may impose stricter rules''' about the need for vaccination, the use of masks and face coverings, hand washing, etc. Those restrictions must be made available to players both before registration and at the playing site.
<hr>
The remainder of this page is retained for the sake of historical interest.
== History ==
'''On 2020-03-18, we [http://www.icontact-archive.com/archive?c=1384631&f=6038&s=14937&m=286005&t=42bfeecf990f5ae04e8a9ea793c9a29e79393ee2e6b4b72ecef1a231ef1a0fa9 advised] all directors to cancel or postpone all sanctioned club and tournament activity, and to not resume until the appropriate public health authorities have recommended doing so.'''
'''On 2020-06-25, we published guidance on when and how to resume competitive SCRABBLE activities according to a four-color SCRABBLE safety level scheme.'''
'''On 2021-06-01 we added the [[#Cyan_Play|<span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> Safety Level]] — conditions under which small groups of fully vaccinated players can meet for sanctioned tournament or club play.'''
'''On 2021-06-21, we removed the cap on the number of participants under the [[#Cyan_Play|<span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> Safety Level]]. '''
Players should check with club and tournament directors to make sure that
events have not been cancelled at the last minute.
'''NASPA's Board is not comprised of doctors or medical care providers. DO NOT predicate your medical decisions or actions regarding your personal health on anything provided herein.'''
== Risk Assessment ==
: Governments lift all pandemic-related restrictions and recommendations, but there have been confirmed or probable cases within 14 days. Participants may meet and play SCRABBLE under <span style="background-color:#C0FFC0">Green</span> rules as described below.
; <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span>
: Governments permit gatherings of unrelated households, and all participants have completed a course of vaccination (such as two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines) and waited the recommended duration (such as two weeks for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines) for it to take full effect. Participants may meet and play SCRABBLE under <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> rules as described belowabove.
; <span style="background-color:#C0C0FF">Blue</span>
: There are no government pandemic-related restrictions or recommendations, or confirmed or probable cases within 14 days. Participants may meet and play SCRABBLE with no restrictions.
** Division sizes should be kept as small as possible.
* Equipment
<!--
** At least five days before the tournament, players should pack tile sets and tile bags into a clear plastic storage bag, labelled with their name and the date it was packed, to ensure that they are virus-free by competition day.
-->
** All participants should bring a board, rack, timer, storage bag containing unused tile sets and tile bags, and a second bag in which to place used equipment.
** The owner of the board, rack, and timer must be clearly identified.
** At the start of each game, either player may request that a previously unused set of tiles and tile bag belonging to one of the two players be put into service. Any used tiles and tile bags should then be placed into the owner’s storage bag, and not reused until disinfected.
** The director may require participants to bring their own word adjudication device.
=== <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">''Cyan''</span> Play ===
Players may meet for traditional face-to-face competitive SCRABBLE using regular playing equipment, subject to the following conditions:
* For all participants (players, directors, and anyone else attending a gathering)
** All participants must have completed a government-authorized course of vaccination against COVID-19, and waited the recommended duration for it to take full effect. (For example, a participant who has received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, and then waited at least two weeks, would be eligible to participate.)
** No one who has a probable or confirmed case of any infectious disease may attend.
** No one who has had a positive COVID-19 test within the past 10 days, or who currently has any symptoms of COVID-19, may attend.
** All participants must conform with all governmental guidance concerning meetings and travel.
* For directors
** The location should be accessible to only the participants as much as possible - for example, a private room in a restaurant but not the main dining room.
** Directors should be careful to conform to any local public health guidance, and refrain from holding events where distancing or other guidance would not permit them to be held.
** Directors may impose stricter rules about the use of masks and face coverings, hand washing, etc. A copy of the <span style="background-color:#00FFFF">Cyan</span> Play rules, along with any STRICTER LOCAL modifications, must be made available to players both before registration and at the playing site.
** The director must keep a list of participants, together with their current contact information, and ask them to certify in writing on arrival that they meet all the necessary criteria for play under these rules. A sample screening form can be downloaded [[Sample COVID-19 Screening Form |here]].
=== <span style="background-color:#C0C0FF">''Blue''</span> Play ===
; What does all government guidance mean?
: ''All governmental guidance means guidance issued by federal, state/provincial, tribal, territorial and county/municipal authorities in both the locality in which a participant resides and the locality in which the gathering takes place. Guidance includes but may not be limited to laws, by-laws, regulations, recommendations and guidelines. Where guidance includes restrictions on nonessential activities, Scrabble events should be considered nonessential. An event must conform to the most restrictive guidance issued by any government authority. For example, if the state imposes no restrictions on gatherings but the federal government limits indoor gatherings to 25 people, the event limit is 25 people.''
; How can I tell what the SCRABBLE safety level is for a specific event?
: ''If you are not sure how to apply the rules, you may email us at info@scrabbleplayers.org and we will research the matter for you. That is, if you tell us what your municipal, state and federal recommendations are, we will tell you what SCRABBLE safety level they imply.''
: ''Your area is in the <span style="background-color:yellow">Yellow</span> SCRABBLE safety level because the government is recommending some social distancing measures. Your club can meet under <span style="background-color:yellow">Yellow</span> rules, and may be eligible to play under <span style="background-color:#00ffff">Cyan</span> rules if everyone present has been vaccinated.''
; What color rules are in effect near borders or at regional tournaments?
: ''There may be ambiguity about which color is in effect in a given situation, especially if play is to take place in a location close to a public health jurisdictional boundary, or if players are traveling travelling to an event from multiple areas. In such cases, the most serious, restrictive rules apply. For example, if a tournament director in Yukon wants to take advantage of their territory's SCRABBLE <span style="background-color:#C0FFC0">Green</span> status, they may do so as long as no one travels to their tournament from or through any area where <span style="background-color:yellow">Yellow</span> or <span style="background-color:#FFC0C0">Red</span> rules would be in effect.''
; How do travel bubbles work?
: ''A travel bubble is a governmental agreement to allow the same rules to hold within a group of jurisdictions. If all participants are within the same travel bubble, then the most restrictive rules in any jurisdiction within the bubble apply. For example, if there is a travel bubble in Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick is <span style="background-color:#C0C0FF">Blue</span> and Nova Scotia is <span style="background-color:#C0FFC0">Green</span>, then an event in New Brunswick would be held under <span style="background-color:#C0FFC0">Green</span> rules even if all participants are from New Brunswick.''
; 2020-06-25
: Announced revised guidelines in weekly newsletter.
;2021-03-24
: Drafted guidelines for Cyan play
;2021-05-20
: Published guidelines for Cyan play
;2021-06-17
: Announced removal of cap of 12 participants for Cyan play
;2021-07-01
: Announced date for end of moratorium
== References ==
=== Stefan Fatsis article===
[[Stefan Fatsis]] reviews the arguments for cancelling tournaments and clubs in [https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/playing-scrabble-coronavirus-pandemic.html?fbclid=IwAR09AKSKilIm7el46-a4QCB8bceiiLawGGRd-5Pzr2B7d9iFkFLmvX1oDv4 Slate].
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Hid until have time to research - since we say there's no info
As of 2020-03-10, there were no announcements online from:
* American Cribbage Congress
* American Go Association (which does mention [https://www.usgo.org/news/2020/01/ing-cup-postponed-in-wake-of-coronavirus-outbreak/ overseas cancellations])
* Magic: The Gathering
* United States Backgammon Federation
* World Series of Poker
-->