That’s interesting. I don’t see much of a correlation among the people I know. I was waiting for a place to open the other day, and I was the only masked one among 6 or so people. Upon seeing my mask, one woman remarked that she’d just gotten her 4th dose (this was a few months ago). I’m sure she thought she was well-protected. And presumably she is, but not from infection any longer. People don’t keep up with all the numbers, and many don’t realize that vaccination doesn’t provide the protection against infection that it did against the ancestral strain (and even Delta). And of course word is still slow to get out re long covid.
People figure the CDC or their state health departments will keep them safe. How many understand that the Community Level emphasis doesn’t care about safety on an individual level, but is mainly concerned with hospital capacity? Not many.
Sometimes I used to try and educate people on some of this. No longer. I don’t say a word. Too many people place too much faith in the CDC or their state/local health departments.
Yes, better immunity from I+V or 3V improves the odds, but it is nowhere near 100% against infection.
OP needs to decide whether they want all guests to be at that level, or if the assumed baseline level that is likely to be present (V or I) is ok (in addition to other mitigation measures that the OP may choose to have).
Perhaps the discussion could get back to the OP’s question of what people have seen vis-a-vis requests and procedure for dealing with COVID at weddings. There are other threads for discussing the effectiveness or not of vaccinations.
If someone (grandmother, aunt, best friend,MOB) shows up for the wedding 30 minutes early and tests positive on the 15 minute test, is there going to be a bouncer to escort them out? Is there going to be a room they can go to to watch the ceremony and have food delivered to them? At an event with 150 guests, not all are going to take being asked to leave well. I know in my family the grandparents, the relatives, the out of town friends wouldn’t be calm about it, even if warned.
I understand asking people to stay home if they are sick or do the testing a few days in advance, but I don’t think testing at the location will work, especially since if they are positive as they are already THERE, spreading their germs in the testing area. Some guests will have spent a lot of money to get to the event, tested in advanced and feel like they have ‘done enough’ to gain admittance to the event without being denied at the last minute.
I can’t imagine testing positive and expect to just join the festivities. If you are sick you don’t enter, just like a child puking on the kindergarten line or folks showing up for their cruise or flight back to the US and testing positive.
But some who test positive aren’t feeling sick. They wouldn’t have taken the test if not required to do so. My daughter tested positive at Christmas 2020, and she never felt sick. Only took the test because her roommate tested positive. Many people don’t test all the time so may test positive from a long recovered bout with covid and won’t know it.
I’d be surprised if I arrived somewhere and tested positive when I don’t feel sick, but i know it can happen. My niece just tested positive when trying to return to the US. She didn’t feel sick and although required to quarantine for 5 days, she never ‘got’ sick. Did she have covid? No way to know; might have been a false positive.
Isn’t this more of an issue with PCR tests than rapid antigen tests?
So it would only matter if the OP wants guests to use PCR tests (but that is probably very expensive for testing immediately before with rapid results).
Also agree. False positives are extremely rare as opposed to false negatives (which aren’t even necessarily false as much as not enough detectable viral load to register yet). Any responsible attendee would be horrified at the thought of spreading the virus to other guests. So a separate area/room would be practical - something spaced well apart with good airflow. The wedding website could assure guests that they wouldn’t be totally shut out by a last minute positive test. They could still eat since the food would be available anyway, and the servers could be alerted to take care. Perhaps there could be some literature on what precautions they should take going forward. I for one would want to get on the phone to my doctor to ask about a prescription for Paxlovid ASAP - being “elderly” with one underlying condition.
@brantly , is it the case that you actually have two questions?
What COVID-19 protocols, if any, should there be at the event?
How should the COVID-19 protocols (or absence of such) be communicated to the guests?
Seems that most of the thread so far is (kind of) about question 1.
As far as question 2 goes, wouldn’t it make the most sense to give full disclosure up front, before guests decide whether or not to attend and commit to potentially costly travel arrangements, etc.? Full disclosure includes whether any change to COVID-19 protocols (whether greater or lesser) may occur later and what the changes could be. It would also be helpful to give information on how much time is spent indoors and outdoors, and how densely packed the location is likely to be.
Yes, two questions. I’m absorbing all the advice here and getting some ideas.
The ceremony and cocktail hour will be outdoors, so anyone who prefers not to be indoors for dinner can choose to attend just the ceremony and cocktail hour (which, quite frankly, will have enough food to be dinner).
We were invited to a wedding last fall and did something similar. We let the hosts know in advance what we were doing so they didn’t include us in the catering count and get charged.
For the outdoor parts of the event, having a “quarantine” seating and area (downwind of the rest of the seating and area) probably would not be too hard to do. If the “quarantine” area is downwind of the rest of the area, then those not in “quarantine” can still interact with those in “quarantine” at the boundary without much virus risk.
The indoor dinner would be somewhat more difficult to handle, depending on the arrangement of the space. If it can be moved to an outdoor dinner, that may help.
We attended an outdoor wedding with cocktails and appetizers outdoors. When it came time for the dinner, half of the people went inside and half of us got dinners to go. I think it worked well.
At my D’s wedding last summer we did have two couples who came just for the ceremony and cocktail hour – it was totally fine. They let us know in advance of their plans and we were charged a very appropriate rate from the venue. We were happy the couples joined us for the part of the wedding they felt comfortable attending.
If I tested positive the day of a wedding, or at the wedding using their test, it’s so incredibly obvious to me that I would go straight home or to my hotel room, I would not be looking for a place at the venue to hang out or eat food and watch the wedding from there. I can’t fathom people who would feel put out by the hosts for not wanting them to enter the wedding given the positive test (disappointed and upset, yes! But not upset with the hosts for asking them to test….upset with self or the world or the virus for having caught covid). There’s lots of different opinions about what mitigation efforts make sense at this point, but I thought at least everyone would agree that people who test positive should not partake in a crowded indoor wedding?!
ETA: oh boy, I don’t mean to start a big argument on this topic. If you disagree, just roll your eyes please, or post the rolling eyes emoji!
If the host is providing on-site rapid testing, perhaps they could arrange with the caterer boxed meals, a small bottle of champagne and wedding cupcakes for individuals that test positive to take back to their hotel rooms or homes. Presumably it would be a very small number of people, and you don’t want to punish them for having covid - you want to thank them for not transmitting to others!
I’d imagine caterer could definitely box meals that wouldn’t be consumed if folks end up contagious or I’ll and unable to be present after responding they’d be attending. All the other stuff (champagne, cupcake) is cute but imho unneeded extra stress.