Mobile Congress Opens in Spain with Tight COVID-19 Rules
Technology
Asharq Al-Awsat
A scaled-back version of the world's biggest mobile telecommunications fair got underway Monday in Spain under tight virus controls, with top firms avoiding an in-person presence after the pandemic derailed last year's edition. Spain's King Felipe V and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez were on hand for the opening of the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, one of the first big technology conferences staged in Europe since the start of the pandemic. "There’s a lot of challenges, this year it was almost a superhuman effort to pull it off," Mats Granryd, director general of the industry association that stages the congress, the GSMA, told AFP. "Health and safety measures needed to be carefully laid out, but we also needed to get exhibitors and make them really understand that this show is important but it's going to be a different show." The event, which is usually held in February, is taking place this year both in-person at Barcelona's main conference center as well as digitally, with an online appearance by tech billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday among the highlights. Participants will only be allowed into the congress if they have a negative Covid-19 test result which is less than 72 hours old and will have to sign a daily declaration that they are in good health. People lined up outside a testing site at the congress throughout the day to determine if they could be allowed in. Once inside they must wear medical-grade FFP2 face masks at all times -- lighter surgical masks are not allowed -- and follow a one-way walking system, although arrows on the floor indicating which direction to follow were largely ignored.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3053031/mobile-congress-opens-spain-tight-covid-19-rules
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