Through November, I only knew 1 person personally who had covid-19. Since Thanksgiving, I know 4 more people plus their family members who had become infected. I definitely understand the abundance of caution.
Still, asking yet another industry of thousands of people to stop working is tough. (Salons, gyms, servers, amusement parks, and others have already been forced to stop.) I recently had one job postpone a shoot for a month. Fortunately, I secured another gig to replace it. Yesterday, I saw more jobs posted for background actors to work than I had seen in a month. Still, Hollywood is super cautious. I imagine this is due to all the break outs on sets last December. One job posting said that they were going to pay a background actor to be tested 5 times in the next 9 days and to not work any of the 8 days prior to working a one day shoot. Another posting said that to be eligible, a background actor could not have worked any job in the past 4 weeks.
I am very glad Hollywood is taking precautions as nobody wants to get sick - but it takes a toll on the finances.
If only the coronavirus vaccine rollout was proceeding as smoothly as we had hoped. Only 6 million doses as of Friday have been injected across the country versus the 20 million the government had hoped for by 2020. NPR gave numerous reasons for the slow rollout, but whatever the reason, thousands of Americans are dying across the country daily because they have not been vaccinated.
I can only hope vaccination process speeds up for all our sakes and that Hollywood's more strigent precautions are effective in keeping its employees safe in the meantime.
Take care and be safe. Posts weekly
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