A US general contractor, Alliance Nationwide Exposition is offering testing at the point of entry for all staff and delegates in an effort to get events happening again. If only testing was this easy in the UK - if it was, could this offer atendees and organisers the confidence?
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In the short term, while the accuracy of tests is dubious, attendees will tend to not trust test results that are positive, and will tend to over-trust test results that are negative. And if a significant investment in an event admission is forfeited due to a dubious test, attendees will be upset with the event organizer. I think tickets/registration fees will have to be either very low or refundable for a much wider collection of reasons, and this liability will have to be borne by the organizer and their sponsors. Otherwise, as is mentioned above, attendees will be reluctant to buy tickets too far in advance, or not attend at all.
It could mean that advance ticket purchases are made much closer to the event date, so that people can have a swab test a week in advance and then purchase their ticket based on the result of that test. Point of Entry or Rapid Detection Tests (RDT) if that is what is being used here, are not currently recommended for use anywhere but in research by WHO (https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/advice-on-the-use-of-point-of-care-immunodiagnostic-tests-for-covid-19 ) as they need to run further checks on the efficacy of these tests before they will OK them for use in making clinical decisions.
I agree with Alun tickets are a significant investment, which may even go up due to the additional cost of putting steps in place. That alone could change purchasing behaviour, making it a much later moment when the event holder can see their ROI. Ideally we want to see WHO approve RDT's for use in event entry and also some way of allaying the fears that ticket buyers may just be turned away from the door with no recompense.
We have had lot of discussions worldwide about this point and it seems that consensus is that it will be a normal part of T&C's for concerts / sports events / anything tickets that "you will be temperature checked on entry and may be refused entry for a failed test". We believe that it may become an expected process much like if tested at an airport and then denied the right to fly. RFor more info contact Uk@disinfectgroup.com
Don't people but tickets for these events a long time before? i think there would need to be some kind of refund policy as it's unfair to expect the delegate to pay upfront and lose out if they come down with symptoms...
What if the delegate has paid for a ticket and then tests positive at the entrance. Are they then entitled to their money back, if they are not allowed to enter?
Would be interesting to see how effective these tests are. From what I have read so far, the tests aren't quite there yet and in terms of time it takes to test and also still providing false negatives. I guess people that get positive tests back could ask for retesting if no fever is found and they are not showing symptoms.
Another element to this is what i have read about testing for antibodies, which is something that can happen alongside the initial test for the virus. That way delegates will also know that they have already had the virus and are now "immune". I am sure we will find out exactly whether that is a reality or whether people can still transmit the disease even if they have developed antibodies.
that is amazing