![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/sun-n-fun-logo.png?resize=353%2C137&ssl=1\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cOur advanced ticket sales were 35% higher than we\u2019ve ever seen ever, in the history of S UN \u2018n FUN,\u201d according to John Leenhouts, President & CEO of the Aerospace Center of Excellence which oversees the expo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Organizers were forced to cancel the April 2020 event at the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Organizers spent the last year following the changing guidelines on COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They landed on some pandemic-era policies, including a loose mask policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe mask requirement is only if you want to, it\u2019s not required. We are requiring you to have one to go into a building. You don\u2019t have to keep it on if you don\u2019t want to once you\u2019re in there but you have to have it on when you get in,\u201d said Leenhouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hand sanitizer and hand-washing stations can be found throughout the property as well as a COVID-19 safety team available to answer questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on 2,000 acres of property out here so it expands exponentially all over the campus. There\u2019s so much room. Unless you want to come up and hug somebody, you don\u2019t have to be close to anybody,\u201d said Leenhouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
International visitor numbers are down. Many large corporations are still not allowing employees to travel so the expo saw a 20% drop in exhibitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leenhouts said the FAA would revoke a pilot\u2019s license if it discovers a pilot flew while having symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Federal Aviation Administration is really strict on the rules governing your medical well-being when you fly an airplane. You don\u2019t dare get in an airplane if you have any symptoms of illness whatsoever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The annual event provides 75% of the revenue for the Aerospace Center for Excellence, which provides STEM education to aspiring young aerospace enthusiasts in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People have flown in from almost every state for this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe question is timing and when is it the safest,\u201d said Dr. John Greene, chief of infectious diseases at Moffitt Cancer Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Dr. Greene, experts say a safe threshold for community spread of COVID-19 would be 10-20 cases per 100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn Polk County right now, it\u2019s 26 cases per 100,000,\u201d said Dr. Greene. \u201cThe community levels are still high and of course, you\u2019ll have people flying in from all over the country, possibly the world, so there is still some risk there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Dr. Greene would have advised organizers to hold the event because of the size of the property and the fact that most of the activities are outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe key thing that\u2019s reducing risk is the open outdoors and the vaccination level of the crowd,\u201d said Dr. Greene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Organizers proudly exclaim this year\u2019s SUN \u2018n FUN Aerospace Expo is expected to attract a \u201csubstantially larger\u201d crowd than ever but experts warn it may come with some risk. \u201cOur… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}