Thousands of PCR tests just for the festival.
According to the Cannes town hall, 29,610 screenings were carried out between July 5 and 17, in the ephemeral center installed for the 7th Art festival and available to some 20,000 accredited persons, according to Festival figures
.
Read also: How laboratories and pharmacies are preparing to face the testing boom this summer
To ensure the strictest health protocol, the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival has a COVID-19 screening center installed by the city hall in partnership with teams from the Bioesterel laboratory of Biogroup.
This 450 m² center ran from 8 am to 9 pm throughout the event, with 56 employees to test up to 4,000 people per day.
Numerous free tests
After a year 2020 without the Cannes Film Festival, canceled due to a pandemic, the 74th edition of the great cinema event has taken place, but this time, respecting a draconian health protocol. Without proof of a certificate of complete vaccination schedule or of acquired and proven immunity against Covid-19, festival-goers had to be able to justify a PCR test or antigen negative of less than 48 hours. This condition concerned the 20,000 accredited people as well as the 700 or so staff members.
Screenings were free for all festival-goers including foreigners, whose tests were funded by the FIF (Film Festival) from July 7, confirms Doctor Guillaume Armana from the partner laboratory Bioesterel.
To date, PCR and antigenic tests known as “comfort tests” are still free for all French people but will become chargeable next fall, as announced by the Head of State in his last speech on July 12. .
Read also: Covid-19: France spends “100 to 120 million” euros per week on tests
The number of PCR tests carried out for the sole occasion of the festival may raise questions.
The 30,000 or so tests counted only concern the ephemeral center installed on the Pantiero esplanade.
Six pharmacies were also partners to carry out the antigenic tests and the delegates and tourists who came for the event were also able to be tested in other places dedicated to screening.
The number of tests carried out in Cannes was well above the usual average, as evidenced by the manager of one of the partner pharmacies adjacent to the Palais des Festivals: "
We are absolutely overwhelmed, we are currently testing between 250 and 300 people daily. against thirty a day in normal times
”.
Behind the protocol, the stakes
For the biologist Guillaume Armana, in charge of the coordination of the screening system of the festival for Biogroup, this “
demanding
”
protocol
is fully justified and wanted to be “
reassuring
”, as much for the organizers as the participants. The press service of the town hall of Cannes also justified the establishment of such a device by the desire to keep the situation "
under control
" and to be able to ensure the event whose economic stakes are decisive for the city, such as David Lisnard underlines it in his press release:
“
Over these eleven days of festivities, our destination was able to reap several million euros in financial benefits.
".
In normal times, that is to say outside the pandemic context, the Cannes film festival represents around 200 million euros in economic benefits for the city.
With 131 cases found to be positive for COVID-19 out of 29,160 (at the time of publication of the press release on July 18), Mayor David Lisnard is pleased to have
"ensured the health protection of festival-goers as well as residents", and to have allowed "To all Cannes professionals in the event sector to rediscover the essence of their profession
".
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