When and How Do We Return to Normalcy?

I haven't seen anybody exploring where, when or how this personal tipping point (from hiding to accommodating) would occur. So, I sent out a message to my Inside Information readers. My own personal challenge with shifting from "life-altering" to "accommodation" is complicated by the fact that I do a number of in-person speaking engagements every year, which entails getting on planes, changing flights at crowded airports, speaking to large gatherings – and honestly, I look forward to these engagements, a chance to personally meet, greet and speak with the people who drive this profession forward. I want to get back out on the road. I also recognize the risks.

Another challenge is the fact that I co-produce one of the myriad fall conferences; our annual Insider's Forum conference – this year, in Nashville, TN, coming up on October 6-8. Last year, we cancelled the show and went virtual, which came off well, but I would still describe it as a somewhat unsatisfying experience because a big part of our meeting is personal networking. This year? Two major conferences that take place a few weeks before ours have been cancelled, citing the Delta variant. They decided that they weren't yet ready to accommodate. A number of other conferences, like ours, are committed to going forward, albeit with lower attendance (and revenues) out of respect for the people who want to get back to in-person meetings.

I want us to be able to provide an in-person conference. I also recognize that in-person events, in indoor venues, create a lot of challenges.

What is the balance between safety and normalcy? I need to protect myself, and more importantly (this, at least, is how I think) I want to protect my wife, kids and grandkids (some of whom are still too young to be vaccinated) when I visit them, and I very much want to promote the safety of the people who attend our conference.

So, as I mentioned, I offered my thoughts on the pandemic, on a return to normalcy, and what I thought were appropriate precautions as we move forward with our own lives and the conference experience I expect to host a month from now.

This is what I wrote. And after that, I'll tell you the reaction that I got from my readers, which covers an amazingly wide spectrum of opinion.

I thought we were out of the woods.

I’m talking about the COVID pandemic, of course, which peaked alarmingly last December and early January and then, as the vaccines became available, the numbers fell dramatically. If you looked at a graph, new COVID cases in the U.S. peaked at a 7-day average of over 3,000 in mid-winter and dropped all the way down to 90 in late July. It looked like the disease was abating from a deadly plague to something that would be an inconvenience for vaccinated people who were unlucky enough to catch it. Meanwhile, there were clinical trials which would make the Pfizer vaccine safely available for children down to six months of age.

I’m not the only person who looked forward to the fall conference season with optimism – me, especially, to our own Insider’s Forum conference in early October. It was time to get back out on the road again and see people in person for the first time in a year and a half. It was time to get on with our lives.

Of course, by now we know that the Delta variant has emerged, and perhaps more importantly, at least 20% of American adults, plus children under the age of 12, are still unvaccinated. We are nowhere near the new case levels experienced in the December/January period, but vaccinated people are experiencing breakthrough cases – and even if they suffer only mild symptoms, there is the danger of passing the disease on to unvaccinated young children.

We are not out of the woods. But I still think it’s time for me to get on with my life. And once again, I hope I’m not the only one.

As you might imagine, my wife and partner Jean and I have been closely monitoring the situation, with particular attention to Nashville, TN, where our conference is scheduled to be held. Tennessee is not, in my opinion, handling the vaccine rollout or mask safety with utmost efficiency, but precaution rules tend to be local – and the city of Nashville seems to be well ahead of the rest of the state in terms of safety and mask wearing. Davidson County has achieved a 56.1% vaccination rate and is on track to reach 65% (if the graph holds up) by early October. The convention facilities in the city have opted for mask-wearing indoors, and there have been no cancellations of citywide conventions even in early fall. We’ve identified several local locations for COVID testing and vaccinations if such should be needed.

Looking out at the longer term, I’m wondering whether, like the annual flu season, the coronavirus is going to stay with us, increasingly in the background, fading from a deadly pandemic to something we all have to plan for, making each of us decide when it has faded enough for those of us who are vaccinated to (that phrase again) get back on with our lives. Some things may change forever. I’m wondering if I will ever fly commercial again without a mask on my face.

At this point, given what we know now, we still plan to hold our conference, in-person, and I, personally, still plan to travel to national meetings. I suspect that I’m not alone in cautiously coming back out in public with precautions in place. I’ve already attended (and presented at) one major conference, and I plan to attend others. I’m back in the gym, albeit with a mask. I visited with family in early August, although we mostly stayed in the house.

If our conference goes on as I think it will, I’m going to make a personal appeal to everybody in our community, exhibitors and advisors. I’m going to ask our attendees to adapt to this new normal, and recognize that even if you feel safe and protected and vaccinated, others may have small children at home who would be at risk if they caught another attendee’s (probably mild) breakthrough case of the Delta variant.

This is an appeal for the safety of everybody in the community (yes, I believe that Inside Information readers and Insider’s Forum attendees are a community, a community of leadership in the profession). In this new normal, I’m going to ask everybody who comes to our conference to include masks with their casual business attire while indoors and attending sessions. Meanwhile, we’re spacing everything out for social distancing purposes, and discovering that the whole conference experience is more comfortable when everybody has a bit more elbow room. In that regard, we may not go back to normal (somewhat crowded) spacing ever again.

I’m cautiously encouraged by the fact that the U.S. is once again vaccinating more than a million people a day, and that the clinical trial for children’s vaccines is finally entering its last stage. I’ve spent a lot of my time reading up on the mRNA ‘technology’ and I believe that the same RNA replication process is much closer than people realize to preventing and curing a lot of other plagues in our midst, including AIDS and cancer.

Are we totally safe from the pandemic at this point? Of course not – and we may never be “totally” safe; we are all now negotiating with matters of degree, all deciding at what point we’re going to stop hiding from the pandemic. I think that our society has developed a number of simple protocols which, if we cooperate together as a community, as a country, will allow us a reasonably high measure of acceptable safety. Everybody’s definition of ‘reasonably’ will be different, but I feel the tide is turning toward venturing back out and living normal lives again.

We’ll keep monitoring the situation in Nashville and with the Delta variant nationwide. But after cautiously traveling to a conference, cautiously visiting family and friends, and finally getting back into the gym, I can tell you from personal experience that it’s possible – and a relief – to get back to something approaching normalcy, to not allowing COVID to dictate our lives.

Most of the feedback I received was positive. One person, who I have a lot of respect for (compliments will do that for you) said: "LOVE the positivity and encouragement of this communication. Thank you!!"

Another: I really appreciate this and your position on masking in the conference. I just finally was able to get my little ones vaccinated since they turned 12 last month, so protecting all the little people is certainly front of mind for me. Thank you so much for your leadership in this regard."

Another: "Wearing a mask indoors is no different than wearing a shirt and shoes at this juncture."

The most common message came from people who said they were still waiting and seeing about doing in-person conferences, but they did want to get out, and they were encouraged that there was a conference that was taking the Delta variant seriously. I think a lot of would-be fall conference attendees are on the fence and will be right up to the last minute.

Not everybody was quite so positive. One person chided me for participating in "the mask-wearing hysteria." She went on to say: "I find the event venue's decision to punish employees who rightfully choose to keep their health status private by forcing them to wear masks is utterly repugnant, and I will not participate in or enable that behavior."

She accused us of "cowardice" in the face of the pandemic, and added:

At such time as the conference organizers and venue choose to embrace bravery instead of fear, and choose to no longer enable emotional manipulators to rule the day, I will be happy to return to in-person conferences.

Another of my readers got right to the point:

I appreciate your point of view, but I long ago stopped hiding from the pandemic. In fact, I never did and have been living a pretty normal life of freedom. I will not attend if I have to wear a mask. I was looking at signing up this week, but that decision has been made for me now. Please let us know if the mask requirement changes.

On the other side of the spectrum, I heard from people who were uncomfortable with attending even with our stated precautions. Consider:

Appreciate your sharing this message. Much of what you said in this email needed to be said.

I really don’t plan on attending any conferences in person until we reach immunity. I agree that this will never go away completely as it may take the form of the flu, which we still must guard against.

I hope your conference will be successful and free from any spread. Sounds like the precautions you are taking are very good ones.

Perhaps the most pointed comment came from an advisor who couldn't believe we would be so irresponsible as to host an in-person conference at all:

Forums were virtual last year and could easily be the same this year.

Time to get on with your life!? How about staying home so that everyone can one day get on with their lives. Having a super-spreader, indoor large event such as this during this time is irresponsible. I hope more people have enough sense to not go.

Finally, there were some personal stories. I'm going to share two of them:

We have to be super careful as we are the primary caregiver [of our special-needs son], and I am the lead advisor, owner, CEO of our small firm caring for about 170 families. I encourage you to think of the tremendous responsibility the advisors in our country have to provide peace of mind to their clients during this pandemic. I believe we have a fiduciary responsibility to keep our advisory firms safe from COVID, even mild cases. Believe me, I long for something closer to normal life. But the numbers at this time are not going our way.

And this one is pretty sobering as well:

As you are aware, I attended AICPA Engage in Las Vegas, and shortly after the conference I was made aware of a few isolated coronavirus issues, but it seemed to be a well-run, well-attended conference, particularly for those of us that were vaccinated.

Since ENGAGE, there has been a lot more information on the Delta variant, waning efficacy rates and breakthrough cases. Unfortunately, I am now one of the “breakthrough cases.” My symptoms have been mitigated by the Pfizer vaccine, which I applaud, but I still suffered severe sinus/cold conditions, headaches and extreme fatigue. I have also been dealing with running the office remotely while under quarantine and navigating additional PCR testing to end my lockdown.

Finally, the most difficult challenge was having to notify family, friends and clients that they may have exposed and requesting that they get tested to ease my concerns and conscience.

While I loved being back in a conference environment, recent COVID / Delta variant results have me concerned about such events in the near future. While it is still early to make any final calls on the Insider's Forum, I have concerns, which probably means your attendees do too.

What do I make of all this? It's a pretty wide spectrum out there. The point is that we shouldn't look for a consensus on when and how to get back out into the world. There are strong opinions and very different perceptions on all sides. I suspect that some of us are going to have to lead the way, venture out from under our beds – and survive the experience, before others will follow. I also believe that people who try to rush back into normalcy without taking precautions – including the vaccines – are taking a risk that I, personally, wouldn't feel comfortable with – not really for myself, but for the protection of those around me, even people I don't know but might closely encounter at the post office, grocery store and the gym.

Our profession, and the world at large, is going to achieve normalcy before COVID is ultimately defeated. But that future day will only come about through millions of individual decisions, accommodations and precautions. My own decision – to mask up and get out from under my bed – is purely relevant to me. Our conference protocols and precautions reflect our own sense of caution, and we seem to have found a point of relevancy for a decent number of advisors and sponsors.

We're welcoming a community of professionals who will, in a little over a month, participate in a cautious return to the conference experience, and our brethren at NAPFA (Boston, October 13-16) are joining us in this pioneering experiment for fall conferences. If all goes well – and I believe it will – then we'll be an early demonstration that the profession, and the world at large, can begin to lead normal lives despite the COVID aftershocks.

Bob Veres' Inside Information service is the best practice management, marketing, client service resource for financial services professionals. Check out his blog at: www.bobveres.com.

Read more articles by Bob Veres