Berlin reports 128 Covid cases from week-long film festival

Berlin: The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the final Covid figures from the week-long event, whose industry element wrapped on Thursday.

Over seven days, the festival found 128 positive cases from 10,938 tests. That means that of all those who were tested -- a group that spans industry delegates as well as non-boosted audience members -- 1.5 percent tested positive, reports variety.com.

On February 13, around halfway through the German festival, organisers confirmed 54 positive tests from 2,700 tests.

Berlin is the only major international film festival to have tested vaccinated delegates every 24 hours. Other festivals such as Cannes and Venice — the former taking place in July 2021, and the latter having yet to skip a single edition — had different set ups. While Cannes tested US and UK delegates every 48 hours to enter the Grand Palais, Venice didn't test vaccinated delegates at all, although testing stations were freely available.

In Berlin, testing stations were built inside buses around the main festival hub, and were also made available inside select hotels. The process was extremely efficient, with results from rapid antigen tests returned in less than 20 minutes.