In response to the unfolding situation with COVID-19 (Coronavirus), the Atom Festival Committee were increasingly concerned about the risks of going ahead with many of the ATOM Festival Programme events. After careful and considered discussions with organisers, volunteers and key partners, and in light of the ongoing uncertainty of the coronavirus situation, they have reluctantly taken the decision to cancel the remainder of the ATOM Festival Programme for 2020.
Some events may be postponed to a later date, and some of the school events will be proceeding. But the key message is that:
1. All public events taking place as part of ATOM 2020 have been cancelled.
2. The organising committee felt a clear and unambiguous decision to cancel was the right thing to do for the safety and wellbeing of the large number of people who make ATOM happen. At least one speaker has been directly affected by coronavirus, and some organisations have withdrawn (sometimes because they are on the front line of the public health emergency).
3. Scientific advice states that the UK has now entered the ‘delay’ phase of what is now a global pandemic, and that means the committee had a responsibility to show leadership in slowing the spread where events are not essential.
You can read the full text of the statement made by the ATOM organising committee here: https://www.atomfestival.org.uk/atom-blog/atom-2020-covid-19-and-public-health/
I feel so sorry for all those volunteers who have worked for months to put together what was going to be an amazing Festival.
Hang on the government want us to get infected. Stay open so we can go under!
Yes it is the ‘herd policy’. When I studied biology I was astounded to learn that according to our governments there was such a thing as ‘acceptable risk’, in other words it is acceptable if some people die. However, if you are the one that dies it is not acceptable.
The acceptable risk policy is adopted across the board.
For example, if we wanted to stop all road deaths we could pass a law requiring people to walk with a red flag in front of all vehicles. However, for various reasons we have decided that such a policy is not practicable. Currently we tolerate a figure of about 2000 deaths a year – in 1966 there were 7985 deaths on our roads with far fewer vehicles than there are now.
Of course, any death arising from accident, suicide or homicide is regarded as tragic – and rightly so. Death from disease is another matter. Sometimes it is avoidable, sometimes not. Vaccination is one policy; but until a vaccine is found, all we can do is introduce measures to reduce transmission of the disease.
And before anybody tells me that I am being cynical, may I point out that I am in the age group most at risk in the present situation, so I have a strong motive to do all that is possible in the interests of self-preservation.
When plague struck the country in the 17th century, the village of Eyam decided that it was better that they should perhaps die than that they should transmit the disease. They self-isolated; 260 of them died. They thought that acceptable.
No point in the government banning large events now as the people have made their own choice and are also cancelling small events such as school clubs etc. Government are 1 step behind!
Thanks very much Backstreeter for helping get the message out. As you can imagine, it’s been a difficult and disappointing week, and we are currently pivoting from getting the cancellation message out to plans for rescheduling, refunding, etc, (so if you bought tickets, bear with us).
The decision to cancel was extremely difficult. As well as following official advice, we had to make decisions based on the overall quality of the experiences we were offering, as well as the safety of the team (we have volunteer and committee member who are themselves in the at-risk category).
ATOM takes place with the support and collaboration of many science organisations who are themselves on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus (for example, Public Health England were scheduled to appear at the Family Science Fair). As more and more organisations withdrew, we felt it was better to follow their lead and allow others to focus on more immediate priorities.
We get huge support from the community, so I’d like to use this website to say ‘thank you’ – and we will work hard to ensure that ATOM returns. In the meantime, our thoughts are now with everyone in our community facing challenges and similar difficult decisions over the coming days and week.
Our website has all the latest information about the current status of the festival.