Following the cancellation of so many events in 2020 for the most of 2021, events which…
involve group gatherings still seem a bit weird; for some people at least. For example, last year Halloween was definitely cancelled; not so this year. Again, the “celebrities” have come out with costumes parading all over social media – literally creepy stuff- but kind of good!
In Melbourne, with our new found freedoms, there was evidence of Halloween-related events. There were many different type of costumes – one of the most popular being the Squidgame theme… Still not as “big” as pre-pandemic time but much more noticeable than last year.
One the of the problems arising is the policing of vaccination status; the rule is that restaurants, cinemas etc.. can have a limited number of vaccinated patrons. Unfortunately, policing has been made the responsibility of the venues themselves. That usually means some young kid that earns a tiny salary and doesn’t give a crap about vaccine mandates. It is totally unreasonable to put this expectation on lowly paid, untrained hospitality workers; should be the job of trained security and / or at least give them an additional stipend for their efforts.
The major issue I have noticed so far is where a fully vaccinated person has their vaccination card – which is deemed to be invalid – apparently, you need some sort of official vaccination status certificate. There will definitely be cases where a dodgy “official” certificate will override a legitimate vaccination card – it’s already happened. These things will sort themselves out in good time but for now it is left to overworked and underpaid staff to work out… not the best situation.
In other unrelated but interesting news Facebook has rebranded as Meta and the U.S. has issued started to issue gender-neutral passports (M, F, X). Not critical issues but interesting to see other things rather than pandemic news predominating.
Also, good to see key events being celebrated in style again – hopefully, “normality” is close!
Until next time …