Hi Justin,

I'm the lead organiser of WordCamp Geneva and thank you to have mentioned us.

Just to add more details to "The organizers worried that such a ban would eventually extend to smaller events". It's also that for smaller events, we would have been requested to give all attendees names to health authorities if a case would happen to any of us, provide enough hand sanitizer at the event (which is difficult to find at the moment), and be liable in case of spread at the event. Furthermore, gather people from different part of Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy could have created a new virus cluster. Also, as it turns out, a probable high percentage of attendees might not even have shown up.

I agree with Mark Maunder's (WordFence) post you linked to. I am myself supposed to speak at another upcoming event, which will probably get cancelled as well, thus I understand the frustration.

A post on WordCamp Europe site talks about official bans and recommendations (and the fact that borders are not closed, as if this would be a bad sign, and as if this was easy to do in EU), but my take is that it is also the organiser responsibility to decide if it is or not a good idea to gather 3000+ persons from 5 continents in a single place.

Stay safe everybody!
Patricia BT, Geneva, Switzerland