Here’s why I think they WILL happen:

Let me know your take below!

1. ⁠Vaccine rates

• ⁠fauchi said all HS will be vaccinated by fall next year, the only thing that prevents this is vaccine rollout being slowed, but we should be good there. If vaccine rates don’t increase at all at current rates 1/2 of the adult population will be vaccinated BEFORE May 1st, if rates continue to increase like they are 2/3rds of the adult population will be FULLY (2 shots) vaccinated before may 1st.

1. ⁠Fauchi’s interview about HS: in this he said that high schoolers could “probably” get Pfizer, Moderna, and J and J and be fine. This paves the way for age limits to be lowered to 13-14 so all Hs can be vaccinated. So it’s possible for debate tourneys to happen, but will they?
2. ⁠There’s pressure for them to happen. I know for my school, sports were happening while we were remote and hybrid. There will be pressure for activities to be able to meet, not just debate, but also clubs like Spanish club or Latin club. Now that’s just meeting what about travel especially to nat tourneys (like GBX and New Trier for example) I’d like to think these would happen, again pressure because sports can do it, but this is the point where I am most uncertain. I’d like to think everyone would be able to (for goodness sake all you’d have to do is sign a permission form as normal but with some other sentences about Covid can’t sue us something something)
3. ⁠There’s incentive for tourneys to be in person. u/MSUDebate I think did a survey a while ago that showed in person debate is preferable to online, (and a bunch of other data that’s useful and you should check out) again there are other factors here like school administrators and might require more paperwork than normal, but not only do people want online debate, places make more money doing it (concessions, potential hotel deals, entry fees, etc)

Overall, I’m pretty hopeful that tourneys will be in person, but things are uncertain. Here’s to hoping!