The BAFTAs were a superspreader event, ‘everyone’ who was in London has Covid

The BAFTAs were held in London two Sundays ago. The awards show featured a mostly maskless red carpet, and there were only a handful of people in the Royal Albert Hall wearing masks. Since I know everyone will yell “the rules changed, no one has to wear masks,” let me just say that if you’re a g–damn adult, you can still choose to wear a mask whenever you want. I still wear masks to the grocery store, and if I attended some big event with no social distancing, my ass would wear a mask. Actors, producers and directors chose differently at the BAFTAs and guess what? Word on the awards-season streets is that the show was a superspreader event:

As Oscar week kicks off, alongside the seemingly now two-horse best-picture race between The Power of the Dog and CODA, one of the biggest talking points is how an apparent COVID-19 outbreak during the BAFTA weekend may impact proceedings. At the Producers Guild of America nominees breakfast Saturday, much of the buzz was dedicated to a reported spike in London.

One source tells THR that the BAFTA weekend cluster has spooked some talent and filmmakers, who don’t want to take any risk of testing positive before the Academy Awards on March 27. “People are going to show an abundance of caution,” says the insider with regard to pre-Oscar festivities, although that may just apply to those who were at the BAFTAs.

As another source — who tested positive for COVID just days after attending the BAFTA ceremony and various surrounding events — says: “It seems the weekend may have been a super-spreader event.”

The British Academy has said it won’t comment, but the news comes as the U.K. experiences a surge in COVID cases, with an estimated 3.28 million people — 1 in 21 in the country — having tested positive for the coronavirus in the week to March 12, the day before the BAFTA ceremony.

[From THR]

Kenneth Branagh, Ciarán Hinds and some members of the Belfast team all tested positive days after the BAFTAs, and Branagh and Hinds are currently isolating and doing virtual appearances. The directors of animated film The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, also tested positive, as did “a number of the National Geographic team who traveled to London for their nominated doc The Rescue.” One unnamed source told THR that “Literally everyone I’m speaking to at the moment says they have it” from agents to publists to journalists who were at the BAFTAs.

THR also points out that at the BAFTAs, people did have to show their negative tests to even get in the door, but as this shows, that system is not perfect. There were also a number of business-as-usual industry events in London that BAFTA weekend, from studio parties to fashion events and of course the dinner for nominees. It’s more than possible one of those events was the actual superspreader event. Or it could be that there were multiple superspreader events that weekend. Anyway, the latest Omicron variant is no f–king joke and it’s super-contagious, just like the first Omicron variant. Mask up, get your booster, etc.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.