With Spain having completed phase 1 of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign this month, live events pose less and less of a health hazard. In partnership with biosafety firm SieXsein Europe, the International Nightlife Association (INA) has proposed a pilot test program for a system they expect would render indoor gatherings can resume safely – even without face masks or social distancing.
The test events would take place at participating venues throughout Spain’s Catalonia region. Attendees would be required to take rapid tests beforehand, with access only being granted to those registered on the Liberty Pass vaccination passport app. For their part, the venues would be fitted with devices expected to neutralize 100% of the coronavirus from the air and surfaces of indoor areas “within milliseconds.”
In regards to the system, INA General Secretary Joaquim Boadas said:
“Nightlife and restaurant venues can be perfectly adapted to the current crisis and are capable of functioning without putting clients and workers risk at stake. Many venues have been closed for a year now and many are in a critical state and at risk of disappearing permanently, an industry that is so important for tourism around the world and in dire need of reactivating the global economy. For this reason, we ask for governments to sit down with our industry and work on the reopening of the industry and the recovery of tourism and the economy by conducting pilot testing in venues and allowing for the industry to prove it can coexist with the pandemic.”
SieXsein Europe CEO Carmen Alvarez added:
“At SieXsein we have been working since the start of the pandemic to find the formula that is best to reactivate and reopen the industries that have been most hit by the pandemic. I have been very fond of the nightlife and restaurant industry and consider that it has been left completely abandoned during this crisis and it’s a personal mission for me to reach the new normal as soon as possible and reactivate the restaurant and nightlife economy and tourism worldwide. Reaching this agreement with the nightlife industry will allow for the best solutions in biotechnology to be applied all around the world and recuperate the economy and general well being of people.”
In the beginning of February, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said during a speech at the Executive Council of the World Tourism Organisation in Madrid that he did not expect mass vaccination to finish before the end of the summer. Health professionals have set 70% vaccination as the benchmark for when it would be safe to open the country back up to tourism.
Neither the INA nor SieXsein Europe have announced a timeline for their system’s pilot program at the time of writing.
