What does COVID testing look like for events?
The COVID-19 pandemic has rewritten the rulebook for event organization, particularly when it comes to testing. The CDC confirms that close proximity for more than 15 minutes, even with masks, can lead to virus transmission, according to the CDC. This presents a challenge for future event planning and shines a spotlight on the potential of COVID testing for attendees and workers.
COVID-19 Testing General Facts
The Center for Disease Control has issued guidelines for event planners during the pandemic. These emphasize healthy behaviors for all event participants, workers, and attendees alike. Key behaviors include staying home when feeling unwell, adhering to hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette, mandatory mask-wearing, and visible signage promoting precautionary measures. At Choura, we’ve been incorporating these measures into our restaurant and hospital builds, which you can explore here:
- Staying home when appropriate. If a worker or attendee is feeling unwell, make sure that they stay home for the safety of others.
- Hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette. Employees and attendees should be washing their hands frequently, and covering their mouths when they cough or sneeze.
- Wearing a mask. Require that employees and attendees wear a mask to the event. Masks are vital when distance cannot be maintained at an event, such as moving through a crowd to get to seats.
- Signs and messages. Provide signs as reminders to employees and guests of the event of what precautions they need to be taking for the safety of themselves and others.
As we look toward attending events in the future, it is important to keep these tips in mind. Choura has been implementing these measures in their builds for restaurants and hospitals, which you can learn more about here. These preventative measures can make a significant difference in slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Should event producers provide COVID testing for event staff and attendees?
Ensuring that all event staff and attendees have been recently tested for COVID-19 prior to arriving is a large feat, and will it make a difference in slowing the spread? The CDC has addressed providing COVID testing for events on their website. While it cannot be officially recommended as a risk-proof measure, COVID-19 testing may support a larger health safety strategy. According to the CDC, it may be beneficial to provide health checks, such as temperature screenings or symptom checks, for staff and attendees, as that has more history of being successful.
While providing mass COVID testing for events has not been studied enough to prove complete efficacy, there are plenty of precautions that event planners can take to increase the safety of their workers and patrons.
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/index.html
