Given the uncertainty that the Covid-19 has created both within the United States and around the world, the organizing committee of the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 2022 decided, after careful consideration, to host our iteration of the conference virtually. While we came to this decision at the beginning of the United States’ surge in cases that resulted from the delta variant of the virus, we draft this statement at the beginning of yet another surge, this one caused by the omicron variant, which is expected to shortly become the globally dominant variant. Although the precise state of the pandemic in November 2022 is unknowable at this point, based on projections by public health officials, we anticipate that further surges will occur between now and the time of the conference, since Arizona’s Covid-19 inpatient numbers have reached in January 2022 their highest levels in 11 months.
While at the time we agreed to host this conference in 2019 we did not even contemplate a virtual conference, at this time we feel that this is the most responsible manner to host a conference as large as the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. In addition to the safety issues associated with travel and congregation during the Covid-19 pandemic, hosting an in-person conference would inevitably exclude somebody from participation due to their own safety concerns, pre-existing health conditions, lack of travel funding, or barriers of other sorts that may exist to their travel. In a time of great uncertainty, we will host the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium as a virtual conference so that our guests may participate without any concerns about safety or other impediments that could interfere with their participation.
See you November 3-5!
The HLS 2022 Organizing Committee.