1. Doesn't the Centers for Disease Control say the virus can't be transferred via surfaces?
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it is possible you can acquire COVID-19 by touching a surface that has the virus on it, and then touching your own mouth, nose, or eyes. As a corollary to that, a study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) found COVID-19 can survive on various surfaces for fluctuating lengths of time. For example, the coronavirus can live for up to four hours on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, and three days on plastic and stainless steel surfaces.

The WHO is slightly more reluctant to say there is a conclusive link to contaminated environmental surfaces spreading infections to people, but suggests that, until such irrefutable evidence exists, it would be prudent to act as though touching them can indeed lead to infection. It should be noted here that the main way Covid-19 spreads is through person-to-person contact, in which viral particles are inhaled, leading to infection. Nonetheless, a surface that contains COVID-19 does present a lingering, if not extreme, threat people should be cognizant of.

2. Once a vaccine is available, do you think the protocols will continue to be enforced or will there be changes/updates?
The extensive safety measures now being designed and executed by groups such as the WHO and exposition-industry association UFI will likely be in place for the foreseeable future, even though a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus might be available as soon as early 2021 from Moderna Inc. Currently, the third – and likely last – stage of the biotech firm's test for its vaccine is scheduled to take place this summer. If that phase, which will involve a sample of 30,000 people, is concluded successfully, the vaccine might be ready to roll out early next year. This may not lead to an automatic rollback of preventive standards such as face masks, social distancing, temperature scanning, and enhanced cleaning, among others, however. Even though the anticipated initial supply of 100 to 200 million doses of vaccine would be enough to inoculate somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of Americans, three recent surveys – from Reuters/Ipsos, ABC News/Washington Post, and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research – show that somewhere between 20 to 27 percent might refuse to be immunized. Such a sizeable fraction means millions who could still catch and subsequently spread the disease to others who decline or delay receiving such protection.

Further, White House health advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has voiced worries about the "durability" of a coronavirus vaccine, saying there's a possibility it may not provide the kind of lifetime or even long-term immunity that some vaccines grant. Even with a potent treatment that generally offers long-standing coverage, people age 50 and older generally do not respond as well to any vaccine as those in younger age ranges do, according to the Mayo Clinic. The combination of a population reluctant to be immunized, the possible lack of long-term protection from a vaccine, and a large demographic generally not as likely to be helped by it, suggests COVID-19 might be with us for the duration. Protective guidelines at trade shows and events might therefore occasionally ebb and flow, but they are not likely to wholly disappear anytime soon.

3. With trade shows or mass gatherings, won't the people who potentially get sick with COVID-19 likely not have symptoms until after they leave the venue and return home?
Currently, the most up-to-date statistics suggest that the median amount of time before people display symptoms is around four days. Additionally, roughly 30 percent of those who are infected never show symptoms at all – implying that, as you ask, many might have COVID-19 but be well on their return leg home from a trade show or event before they fall ill or at least display the indicators of carrying the coronavirus.

However, should several individuals display symptoms of the coronavirus during a show, it can create a cascade effect that overwhelms local health-care facilities. For example, once those who are clearly showing signs of being infected undergo medical treatment and/or quarantine, contact tracers would likely backtrack their movements to determine who they had physically encountered over the previous few days – a time-consuming, labor-intensive task, especially if they were at, say, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with 182,000 attendees or the Specialty Equipment Market Association show (SEMA) with 161,000 visitors. Such a scenario could ultimately mean dozens, even hundreds, who might then have to be isolated as well as given at least rudimentary medical care whether they fully develop the disease or not. If a city's medical capability were already strained to any degree, such an acute influx of patients might well engulf it.

4. Moving forward, do you think the WHO will consider the UFI guidelines, separating exhibitions from "mass gatherings" because attendees at exhibitions follow rules and are not all necessarily there at one time?
"Mass gatherings" is the umbrella term the WHO employs to refer to concentrations of people who congregate in a specific place for a tightly defined purpose over a fixed amount of time. The term is purposely elastic, encompassing events from the Olympic Games and religious festivals to conferences and exhibitions. The WHO's main concern is whether any of these has the capability to stress the host area's health-care resources, not necessarily their commercial or non-commercial nature, typical behavior of attendees, or type of activities that occur. Consequently, for the WHO's purposes, the Olympics are essentially the same as the South by Southwest music and film conference/trade show (SXSW) or the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS).

UFI, the global assemblage of trade show and exhibition organizers, views it from a different perspective. In its "Global Framework for Reopening Exhibitions and B2B Trade Events," UFI asks decision makers – likely meaning those charged with reopening their countries, states, regions, or cities – to evaluate events "according to their type and not according to a rigid total number of people," taking pains to differentiate concerts or festivals from conferences and conventions. Presumably these decision makers would be able to use UFI's definitions to better decide which are the most vital to their jurisdictions' economic and social wellbeing.

5. Are giveaways still going to be allowed at post-COVID trade shows?
Giveaways are not addressed in the WHO's guidelines. The closest the agency comes is its many references on the necessity of observing physical distancing, thus implying that handing out tchotchkes would mean necessarily violating the social-distance rule of 6 feet or more. Protocols recently issued by UFI, an organization representing the international exhibition industry, don't address the question exactly but do offer some prospective guidance. In its "Global Framework for Reopening Exhibitions and B2B Trade Events," the France-based group suggests enabling a no-contact policy (that is, eschewing handshakes), physical distancing, and enhanced cleaning of booths.

It is possible to infer from the UFI's mandates a workaround for companies wanting to hand out promotional items. Exhibitors could employ staffers wearing facemasks and protective gloves to frequently wipe down the giveaways, reducing the opportunities for the virus to land on them from nearby staffers or guests speaking, coughing, sneezing or simply exhaling. Additional gloves and wipes kept nearby the giveaways for guests would allow them to pick up items using the gloves as well as wipe them off before departing with them. Meanwhile, staffers could maintain a prescribed distance of 6 feet or more. Since the general guidance WHO and UFI offer on this specific issue is nebulous, and the scenario outlined here is simply theoretical, the best course of action is to contact event organizers, as well as the meeting space involved, to see if they have any specific rules, or at least suggestions, regarding the distribution of giveaways.

A Senior Writer at EXHIBITOR magazine, Charles Pappas is also the author of "Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs, and Robot Overlords," a history of how expositions have changed the world.