Sundance Film Festival expands covid-19 protocols amid Omicron scare

Amid the rising fear of Covid new variant Omicron, Sundance Film Festival has updated the covid-19 restrictions for its 2022 event. 

However, now the event, which will see all in-person attendees will require vaccination as well as boosters, if eligible, for all guests of the festival.
The upcoming festival will be a hybrid event that has “flexibility for attendees to participate in-person and/or online.”

“The health safety of our community is paramount,” Sundance organizers said in a press release. The film festival will run from Jan. 20 through 30. 
The previous requirement stated that attendees would have to be fully vaccinated with either a two-dose series of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

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As per the rules, all the attendees will have to show their vaccine status on-site at Vaccine Verification and Testing Hub. Once shown, the participant will be provided with a wristband that will need to be worn at all times at the festival.

The festival will be providing free testing for both workers and attendees for the event. “We ask everyone to be vigilant about hand sanitizing, test often, and when outside of Festival-operated spaces to social distance when unmasked,” the site reads, “We will continue to monitor the general levels of community transmission and local COVID-19 vaccination coverage in our in-person communities, working to maximize their health safety and adjust any plans as needed for the safety of our community. Any further policy updates will be shared in early January.”

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Other new protocols include limited capacity in movie screenings. Masks will be required in all screenings, and eating and drinking will no longer be allowed inside the cinema halls.