Performing arts passport? No problem

Performing arts passport? No problem

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norman lebrecht

April 07, 2021

For all the general rumblings about people carrying vax certificates to get them into venues, we’re hearing no anxiety whatsoever from the performing arts.

On the contrary, theatres and concert halls would much prefer their audiences to be certifiably Covid immune in order to offer the best protections to artists and staff.

Artists, from what we hear, overwhelmingly support it.

Let’s open up again safely.

 

 

Comments

  • Elizabeth Owen says:

    When I went to the David Hare production at the Bridge Theatre in September, they had staggered timed entrance to the building, plus my temperature was taken when entering. Seats had been taken out and everyone wore masks. Excellently organised with no delays and absolutely no problem.

  • May says:

    Great! Another reason to further discourage young people from wanting to attend classical concerts!
    We shouldn’t be wasting our time with vaccination certificates. They are just another chimera among the myriad of wishful optimism that Covid will simply disappear. Anyone who signs up for the lifetime vaccination subscription is aligning themselves with false security. If you thought that getting prompted for endless updates for your Flash player was annoying, wait until the sneaky virus keeps mutating into forms that the current vaccine can’t keep up with.
    Want to get vaccinated? Great. But don’t impose your misguided health requirements on the general population. Masks in a concert hall? No problem. Washing your hands: common sense. But a vaccine passport? Useless. There are millions of people who will never need to be vaccinated.

    • Mecky Messer says:

      So….the boring music, 3rd-grade jokes and lunatic theories that suddenly people are going to stop listening to their preferred music just because they see a black musician playing a 300-year old unamplified instrument, or a horrendous rendition of a pop cover in said instrument are not reasons enough for audiences to run away from these church-like SECT of “classical music”…

      No. Its the problem is obviously the way we ID people….

  • Dr. Schlomo Rosenberg says:

    Yes, and once you show your proof of health they give you a lovely armband to wear so they don’t needlessly check you again. As an award winning medical doctor, I fully support this safety theatre.

    • Plforf Gimple says:

      Great points, doc! I can definitely get on board with this plan. Hopefully more countries will get similar programs started up soon, before this pandemic continues to ravage society and kill our most valuable citizens – the elderly.

    • Hayne says:

      Dr. Rosenberg,
      You are quite correct about this coming medical apartheid. Reminds one of the South African Pass Law of 1952 where all black over age 16 had to carry an internal passport.
      Governments using fear instead of scientific evidence for these laws are totalitarian. Plforf Gimple and apparently many others are proof of this.

  • Robert Smith says:

    Vaccine passports are not a good idea at all as it will lead to a two class society and a social credit system as explained in this video “The Truth About ‘Vaccine Passports'”:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcmZG0H4HzE

    • Couperin says:

      An internet troll video? Very helpful. If the government could make smallpox and polio vaccines a requirement, they could do the same with covid, once FDA gives full approval. I’d much rather show a vaccine card to go to a movie than to wonder how many deplorable unvaxxed neanderthals are sitting near me. Oh, and, more and more it’s looking like our vaccines could last years and do protect against variants. So, stop crying and get your vax.

      • Robert Smith says:

        It’s not a troll video. It contains vitally important information. If you think it’s a troll video, it would better if you would give reasons, apart from why a vax makes you feel better. The video raises important issues that you haven’t addressed, such as social credit systems and a two tier society, for example. Also, the US government is not making them compulsory. Boris Johnson also originally said that such passports would be un-British, and Sir Keir Starmer said that vaccine passports would be against the “British instinct”. Cheers.

        • Dave says:

          “Boris Johnson also originally said…”

          What Johnson claims to believe changes more often than his underpants. As for “un-British”, that could also be said of the flag-shagging in which the tories now happily engage, so I’d be very wary of their use of that adjective.

      • Saxon says:

        Couperin writes: “.. more and more it’s looking like our vaccines could last years and do protect against variants. ”

        Er…this is just wishful thinking and wrong. The protection any vaccine gives fades over time. This happens partly because your immune response fades over time, and partly because the vaccine evolves over time. And you must also remember that many people have immune systems that don’t work so well; they will always be at risk.

        For a vaccine programme to work, in the sense of providing full immunity, you will need to take the vaccine every few months. That won’t ever become widespread practise. Without this, Covid-19 will gradually fade into the background, but never be entirely eliminated and always cause a few deaths. This will be the ultimate outcome; (vulnerable people will take the vaccine once-a-year).

        The sooner people become reconciled to this outcome, the sooner we will be able to move on.

    • Mr. Knowitall says:

      Equally useful and even more scientifically sourced is this youtube video on whether aluminum-foil hats will prevent the government from reading your brainwaves.

      https://youtu.be/wqAX8n38EdI

      • Robert Smith says:

        That’s got nothing to do with the video I posted, but it is quite funny, even if it is a bit antique and dated now, LOL!

    • Miranda Green says:

      We already have a two (or more) class society.

    • Chon Junch says:

      WRONG!!

      How else can we verify the safety of regular citizens? The vaccine passport is the ONLY way for humanity to end this pandemic and begin the long road BACK to normalcy.

    • JosĂ© Bergher says:

      Excellent video. Wonderful mention of the surveillance and other virtues of the Chinese “Workers’ Paradise.”
      Recommended reading.- “The Nazi Census – Identification and Control in the Third Reich,” by Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth. Translation and preface by Edwin Black. Also: “IBM and the Holocaust” and “Nazi Nexus,” by Edwin Black; and “1984,” by George Orwell.

    • Jack says:

      It IS a two-class society in this case: First, there are the Intelligent people who believe in science snd trust the judgment of doctors, scientists, and epidemiologists. Second are the not-so-intelligent people who do not. THEY are the ones who will prolong this pandemic for years to come. Let them keep their defiant narcissism and be kept out of concerts, public travel on trains and airplanes, and any other interaction involving groups of a certain size and proximity. OK with me.

  • Rob Smith says:

    Good news: The White House ruled out a U.S. vaccine ‘passport’ yesterday.

    “The government is not now, nor will be, supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential. There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. (CTV News)

    • Barbarian at the Gates says:

      With the greatest number of deaths in the world, the US is hardly the go-to for advice on how to handle Covid.

    • Saxon says:

      It is likely so many people have already had the virus in parts of the US (and in Britain) that they effectively have herd immunity in those regions (or are very close to it). It was unfortunate that so many people died getting there. But now we are there…

  • MV says:

    GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization does not back requiring vaccination passports for travel due to uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission of the virus, as well as equity concerns, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

    “We as WHO are saying at this stage we would not like to see the vaccination passport as a requirement for entry or exit because we are not certain at this stage that the vaccine prevents transmission,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-vaccines-idUSKBN2BT158

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