S04 #03 COVID never Ending - Oct 2021 Announcement

Laura and Benny Show - Laura Redhead Benson

Laura and Benny discussing the slight pause of the final lifting of restrictions: COVID preventive measures will be in place until Spring 2022. Mainly: COVID Certs (not used at weddings but get vaccinated!), Mask Wearing and Physical Distancing. For Weddings, easiest one first: Curfews are gone! Normal trading hours are now permitted for hospitality. Numbers: there is no explicit numbers restriction but venues must adhere to preventative measures. That means venue should follow guidelines. Following guidelines may result in reduced capacity. Weddings are made up of potentially vaccinated and unvaccinated guests so pods/tables of 6 will most likely apply. Table service or other non-crowd-gathering queueing systems to be used when serving drinks. Antigen Test will not be used at weddings but will be sent to vaccinated people if they are a close contact. People should monitor their exposure and contacts in the run up to a wedding. (So you can have hundreds of contacts at your wedding!) The above is from the press conference on the 19th October 2021, Failte Ireland will release guidelines shortly to confirm the operations of weddings in hospitality settings. So close but no cigar, yet! Benny is gutted that his prediction is off by a month, most likely there will be an announcement in January 2022 to confirm the end of all measures. As of October 2021 they are saying February 2022 for removal of all measures. Pre the Christmas disaster of 2020, Benny said the 3rd of Jan 2022 would be the end of all restrictions, COVID would be done! He might yet be right but it is a bitter blow for his COVID response rating.

Laura and Benny Photography are wedding photographers in Ireland.