After an apparent COVID-19 outbreak at the BAFTAs, how are the Oscars keeping attendees safe?

Together with the same old suspense and hand-wringing over who will take house the gold at Sunday night time’s Oscars, these planning to attend the ceremony are contending with one other uncertainty this 12 months: Will they catch COVID-19?

The latest British Academy Movie Awards, held in London on March 13 together with numerous events earlier than and after the BAFTAs, at the moment are suspected of getting led to a lot of COVID-19 infections, together with amongst a few of this 12 months’s Oscar nominees, elevating considerations over whether or not Hollywood’s greatest night time may develop into one other glitzy super-spreader occasion.

Following the BAFTAs, “Belfast” filmmaker Kenneth Branagh, Oscar-nominated for steering, producing and writing the film, examined optimistic for COVID-19, as did the movie’s Ciarán Hinds, a supporting actor nominee. Compelled to isolate, each bowed out of attending Saturday’s Producers Guild Awards.

Days after the BAFTAs, filmmaking duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller, nominated this 12 months for producing the animated movie “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” additionally examined optimistic, as did some members of the workforce behind the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Rescue” in addition to a lot of journalists, publicists, executives and others in attendance, in line with insiders.

“There have been so many occasions main as much as the BAFTAs and, in fact, nobody was carrying masks as a result of legally they didn’t need to,” stated a supply who attended the awards ceremony. “You recognize when there’s that many individuals in an indoor house, one thing goes to occur.” The supply added they knew not less than a dozen individuals who examined optimistic for COVID shortly after the BAFTAs.

It’s not clear whether or not the Oscars pose an identical danger. Whereas the UK is at the moment experiencing a spike in new COVID-19 circumstances, numbers within the U.S. — and in Los Angeles particularly — have been declining sharply because the Omicron surge has waned. And in distinction to the BAFTAs, at which attendees had been required solely to supply a detrimental antigen check and mask-wearing was not enforced, the Oscars are adopting stricter COVID-19 protocols.

These attending the Oscars, in addition to anybody attending the academy’s honorary Governors Awards on Friday, can be required to submit two detrimental PCR checks in addition to proof of vaccination, the academy has stated. Presenters and performers on the Oscars is not going to be required to be vaccinated however should present that they’ve lately examined detrimental for the virus.

Members of the media protecting the occasion on the pink carpet should put on masks, as will attendees contained in the Dolby Theatre who’re seated outdoors of the orchestra part. Whereas the theater usually holds greater than 3,000 folks, attendance can be extra restricted this 12 months, with some seats being eliminated to supply larger social distancing.

Nonetheless, the Oscars and the assorted events surrounding it can look much more regular this 12 months than they did final 12 months, when the awards had been relocated to Union Station and the viewers was capped at simply 170 principally masked attendees.

Whether or not they may really feel regular is one other query — and can probably fluctuate relying on the COVID-19 anxiousness ranges of these attending.

“I believe individuals are over it,” stated one Oscar nominee, who has gone to quite a few occasions main as much as the Oscars. “You check, you check, you check and then you definitely simply hope for the most effective. Nobody’s carrying masks. I carry one, however you’re feeling such as you’re being paranoid — and everybody will see you as being paranoid — when you really put it on and put on it.”

Mentioned one other nominee: “I’m going, however, to be trustworthy, all of the protocols drain the enjoyable out of attending. Plus, I don’t know the way a lot good they’ll do. I’ll in all probability lose. I received’t come house with an Oscar, however I could come house with COVID. Yay!”

As with the BAFTAs, quite a few events and different occasions are scheduled within the days main as much as Sunday’s ceremony, from a celebration of Norwegian cinema to the fifteenth annual Essence Black Ladies in Hollywood Awards to an industry-packed CAA social gathering celebrating such nominees as Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Nicole Kidman — all of which can have their very own COVID-19 protocols, however which taken collectively may present extra alternatives for the virus to unfold.

Oscar night time itself will see the return of most of the into-the-wee-hours events of the prepandemic period, together with the Governors Ball, the Self-importance Honest social gathering and the Elton John AIDS Basis Viewing Get together.

If there’s any concern about attending these occasions within the wake of a doable surge, it hasn’t been a lot in proof judging from the crowded ballrooms on the numerous guild awards and after-parties which have taken place this month.

“Persons are prepared to go away behind the isolation,” says an awards marketing consultant who has schmoozed via the late-season occasions. “The information out of the BAFTAs was a little bit regarding, however I believe it’d take somebody to, , really die to maintain Hollywood away from the Oscars.”