Cannes Film Festival Requires ‘Really Gross’ COVID-19 Saliva Testing

The Cannes Film Festival is set to go forward this year after being canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but attendees are required to go through excessive COVID-19 testing requirements. 

As reported by Variety, “the saliva test will be the preferred method of checking for COVID by Biogroup, the laboratory hired to fight the spread of the virus that has killed 4 million people around the world.” Instead of a swab being inserted into someone’s nostrils to check for COVID-19, people are made to spit into a plastic tube in order to be tested. 

“It was difficult for me,” Olivia Wilson, a festival intern at the American Pavilion, said. “I couldn’t produce enough saliva.” She guessed that she had to spit “more than 15 times” before she’d given the correct sample amount.

In France, the laws regarding COVID-19 involve the incorporation of a vaccine verification system for large events. 

According to the government’s guidance: 

For public events bringing together over 1,000 people, spectators aged 11 and over will need to present a health pass.

The pass must prove one of the three following items:

• That you are fully vaccinated (with an EMA-approved vaccine):
  • Two weeks after the second shot for two-shot vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca);
  • Four weeks after the shot for one-shot vaccines (Johnson & Johnson);
  • Two weeks after the shot for vaccines administered to people who have already had COVID-19 (only one dose is necessary).
• OR that you have been tested (PCR or antigen) with a negative result within the last 48hrs;
  
• OR that you have recovered from COVID-19, attested by a positive PCR or antigen test result, at least 15 days and no more than 6 months old.

The site also specifies that people are not required to present the health pass for “acts of daily life,” including shopping, commuting, and going to movie theaters. 

According to Variety, “French laws require that those who gather indoors either must be vaccinated or show proof of a PCR test.” Due to the fact that the French government’s health app won’t be able to make a transferable bar code for people coming to Cannes from countries that are outside of the European Union’s COVID-19 tracking methods, some people who come to the festival will be treated as if they are not vaccinated. 

“The mandate has already led to confusion — and complaints — from festival-goers on the ground,” the outlet reported. “According to the latest rules, non-European attendees at Cannes will need to be tested for COVID every 48 hours” to get into the Palais, a building where producers create areas to market their movies. Since France doesn’t mandate proof of vaccination inside movie theaters, people who are only coming to watch the films won’t need to go through the testing hurdles. 

While some people were fine with the testing requirements, others expressed disgust about the measures of the testing. Some attendees are required to provide more saliva if they didn’t get enough or were disqualified for various reasons including if food was mixed in the spit. 

“It has to be liquid,” a laboratory worker reportedly instructed. “Foam doesn’t count.”

“I found the test to be really gross,” said one person who went through the process, per Variety.

The festival’s requirements come at a time when organizers of large events are seeking ways to go back to normal life while avoiding outbreaks, but with the high availability of the COVID-19 vaccines in many countries around the world, many are beginning to wonder if such testing is necessary at all.

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