‘Health passport’ could bring sport and concerts back to life
● A Covid-19 rapid-testing station that opened at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town this week, combined with a simple mobile app, may be the passport to the revival of the events industry.
The entire hospitality industry has been decimated by the pandemic, but the live events sector has been crushed.
In December, it was thrown a lifeline when a global initiative called Health Passport was demonstrated at a function for a few hundred people.
It comprised a rapid-testing station where people could receive their Covid-19 test result in 15 minutes, delivered to an app, which confirmed their “low-risk” status, and displayed a QR code confirming this status via a scanner at the entrance to the event.
“Until then, it had been tested by airports and airlines as a possible means of reopening the travel industry,” says Justin van Wyk, CEO of the country’s biggest live events company, Big Concerts, now part of the global Live Nation Entertainment group.
“We thought there must be similarities between what they are doing in the travel space and what we’re doing in the event space.
“And if that is an allowable way for you to return to your business, then surely there should be similar ways for us to find a way to return to life.”
The Grand Café at the V&A Waterfront was selected for the proof of concept, and 250 people were invited to the Recharge 2020 event, which took place shortly before new restrictions were placed on gatherings.
“That process gave us a lot of insight into how this process can be upscaled to a much greater capacity. Potentially, we can have an arena full of people who have been tested. We can test every single person that arrives on a flight at Cape Town International Airport.”
The rollout of Health Passport has raised the possibility that the British and Irish Lions tour to SA in July could have live audiences in attendance, limited only by rapid-testing capacity.
“It is a way we can reopen restaurants, we can put our people back to work, we can put our artists back on stages, we can put our sports stars back into the track and onto fields to earn a living,” says Van Wyk.
The rapid-test centre opened this week as a permanent facility of the Lookout venue at the V&A Waterfront, and can at present test 275 people an hour.
“We can double that to 550 per hour, overnight, when demand increases,” says Robert Quirke, CEO of Irish company Roqu Group, which developed the system “from a blank page”.
He is also a director of the company operating the project here, Health Passport SA.
Similar stations have been rolled out in Ireland, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria, Canada, Spain, Kenya, and Nigeria. As different as each country’s Covid-19 situation is, the app represents the potential for a globally recognised “health passport”.
“One of the challenges is that every country and every airport and every airline has a different requirement,” says Quirke. “This system allows for a common solution that can be adopted across international borders.
“Overnight, it overcomes some of the big problems, like fake documents, approved test centres and the ability to process high volumes of people in a short period of time.”
Health Passport is working with Cape Town International Airport and a number of international airlines flying into the country, as well as airports in Europe, but is not actively engaging with national authorities.
“We focus on working with industry. So we support the airlines, airports, hotels, the sports industry, and we focus on events, on getting 50,000 people back into a stadium again,” says Quirke.
That’s not hypothetical. Health Passport Europe is already working with local governments in Portugal to show it can test 65,000 people within eight hours.
The centres also help create jobs, with 50 people already employed at the Waterfront facility.
World 400m champion and Olympic gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk visited the centre on Monday to offer his support.
His return to the track for the European season was interrupted last year when he contracted Covid-19 in Italy, testing positive despite having no symptoms. He had to selfisolate for almost a month before he was allowed to return to training.
“A lot of anxiety and stresses came with it,” he told Business Times.
“Having a platform where you can be tested quickly will take some of that anxiety away.”
The most exhilarating prospect, he says, is that such centres could be a gateway to the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July being a mass spectator event, rather than athletes competing in empty stadiums.
It raises the possibility that the Lions tour to SA could have live audiences