Berlinale and Corona: masks and vaccinations work!

It’s not really news that masks and vaccinations work. But Berlinale proved that they indeed do.

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Berlinale was held as a physical event, only for people that were vaccinated or recovered. All those that didn’t do the 3rd vaccination yet, plus all the press people (more than 2000 people) were obliged additionally to do a daily rapid test, to attend the screenings. Those were additionally held with an ffp2 mask  requirement, and an empty seat among each guest (50% capacity).

All these measures resulted finally on only 128 positive Covid-19 cases from the almost 11000 tests that were conducted. The festival commented that: “With 1.5% of positive tests the figures are far less than the average percentage of positive tests around Berlin.” And indeed the positivity of cases in Berlin is well above 30%, lying at 34% this week. This chaotic difference can only tell us that film festival should be held physically and that cinema in general is not a big, or for sure not the biggest danger for the public health.

People went to the Berlinale films, they wore masks all the time and the result was pretty positive. The same time, restaurants all over the world are open, with the guests not having masks and with almost not existent obligation for distances among tables and guests. Why the later are just businesses that we try to save, when cinema and art in general struggles is on this pandemic is a good question.