The impact on the health care system and health care practitioners taking care of the surge of COVID-19 patients, particularly with Omicron variant, the CROI leadership has come to the difficult decision that the CROI 2022 meeting will be fully virtual. The decision is multifactorial, but our foremost priority is to ensure the health and safety of our attendees. The following are part of the reasons why it is unsafe and impossible to have the in-person component of the CROI 2022 in early February.

  • Although some areas of the US are finally seeing hopeful signs of a plateau or downswing in numbers of new cases, the Omicron variant is spiking and out of control in many other regions in the US. According to a COVID-19 status update published by the City and County of Denver on January 7, 2022, there will be a “significant rise in COVID-19 cases across the Denver-metro area and state in January,” with a public-health professional quoted in the article as saying the next month “is probably going to be the scariest point of the pandemic.” The case rate in Denver is “the highest rate” measured during the pandemic and “the region’s hotel capacity remains in jeopardy.” According to a news article published by the Denver Post on January 10, 2022, the state of Colorado “reactivated crisis standards of care for emergency medical services, allowing understaffed ambulance providers to only transport the most seriously ill or injured patients to hospitals, and to opt not to attempt resuscitation on patients with low odds of survival. Colorado has been under crisis standards to allow hospitals to stretch their limited staff since November.” Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health, was quoted in that same article as saying, “This is the time, for the next few weeks, to hunker down.”
  • Within this context and as our CROI leadership represents internationally recognized physician scientists in the fields of infectious diseases and public health, the International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA) and the CROI Foundation Board are acutely aware of the dangers of gathering large numbers of researchers from all around the world in conditions like those that Denver is presently experiencing with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Governments where potential attendees of CROI 2022 reside have also recognized those dangers and have imposed travel restrictions.
  • Despite models suggesting the current surge may abate for most of the US by late January, severe disruptions in the health care, travel, hotel, restaurant, and business sectors will persist as hospitalization and death rates from severe COVID-19 will linger beyond the peak and the sheer numbers of cases have overwhelmed the infrastructure to handle them.
  • Most of our invited speakers and potential attendees are healthcare workers employed in critical positions in their home institutions or are researchers working within state or US government public health or academic research organizations and are heavily involved in the COVID-19 pandemic response in some manner. Most are now unable to leave their institutions due to travel restrictions or health care responsibilities. Most of our invited speakers and potential attendees are healthcare workers employed in critical positions in their home institutions or are researchers working within state or US government public health or academic research organizations and are heavily involved in the COVID-19 pandemic response in some manner. Most are now unable to leave their institutions due to travel restrictions or health care responsibilities.
  • In the survey conducted in the first week of February among CROI 2022 current in-person registrants, fewer than 300 indicated that they still intended to attend the conference in person. The similar surveys of the CROI 2022 Scientific Program Committee members and invited speakers indicated that fewer than half of those thought they would be able to attend in person. Obviously, the rich networking that traditionally happened with an in-person CROI would not be possible with an in-person CROI 2022 given these data.
  • Airline travel, both domestic and international, continues to be disrupted by staffing shortages. Similar staffing shortages are also affecting hotels, restaurants, and other businesses making it impossible to execute the logistical support necessary for a safe and efficient conference environment.
  • Given the ongoing burden of the pandemic on local Denver city and county health care and public health facilities, should infections occur among our conference attendees, acute shortages of testing resources, outpatient, or inpatient treatment, would create an untenable and unsafe environment for conference attendees.

We ask you for your patience, support, and understanding as we balance the need to act responsibly in the face of the surge of COVID-19 cases while doing our best to protect the integrity of the science and serve those living or at risk of HIV. We thank you for your continued support.