Digital Screening senses the variants.
Chemical testing is so 2020.
For the most part, those operating leisure experiences (Cruise Ships, Resorts, Stadiums, and Theme Parks) have patiently reacted to mandates, biding their time till vaccines would restore normalcy. Be careful what you jab for. A new “variant” reality is creating a longer road to recovery. It seems some fast spreading variant strains of Covid19 (South Africa, Japan ) have cropped up to defy the major vaccines even as they are still being rolled out, to the extent that labs are racing to develop booster shots to cover the ever increasing gaps.
No one can get ahead of any of this in real time, as authorities have no fast way of identifying variant spread until the strain has already penetrated the populace.
Axios.com sums it up this way. “The bottom line: Vaccines work, and they are still the key to ending this pandemic. But leaning on them almost exclusively only makes the job harder and will likely prolong this pandemic for years.”
How to protect your audience.
If you operate or manage a large “shared experience” you know that without the “perfect storm” of a great experience, value pricing, and the capacity that your venue or experience was designed for, this all represents a huge, lumbering downward spiral. The cost of lockdowns and reopening large venues are devastating and not sustainable.
So let’s all take a masked and distanced deep breath and look at some options.
Goals to “future proofing” your experience.
- Restoring the Experience. Making your cruise ship or theme park into a “hospital” of masks and distanced guests behind shields kills the essence of the romantic experience you are selling. The value is shot. Aiming higher, we recommend a “safe bubble” (like the TSA at an Airport) where the only people admitted are detected to be safe from contagion and the virus itself. The fun is restored. ( You’re thinking… yeah right, but how?)
- Restoring Capacity. Only admitting vaccinated guests is like having a hole in your net. You will get some but not all, meaning as long as vaccinated people can either still get sick or spread a virus then you still have a compromised experience and are stuck in a limited capacity business model. The only way to get to 100% capacity is to solve the problem and again only admit non contagious, well people.
- Restoring the Model. As long as there has to be a lab or checkpoint to admit these guests, there is a cost and operations barrier of having medical staff. Why do tests that do not really yield conclusive results? Temperature tests do practically nothing, antigen tests know not unless you are showing symptoms. Never delegate safety back to the guest. Fact: One guest who lies about their condition infects an entire planeload.
Having laid all of that out, our “futureproofing” team of doctors, former Disney Imagineers, and computer scientists looked at what would satisfy all 3, and looked for firms developing technology we could “Imagineer” into a seamless, fun version of the highest safety screening out there.
What we looked at.
We first decided that since variants exist, to “futureproof” a venue we would have to throw the net wider to detect all of it, leaving less accurate PCR and Antigen tests out. We want something that potentially adapts to detect new strains of contagion closer to real time. A tighter net. Next, we looked at where the errors came from, and many are from mishandling of chemical tests. This led us away from chemical, lab based tests with swabs. The “Imagineer” in me sees swabs as negative to the guest and does not deliver enough accuracy fast enough. Also hard to operate and afford. Finally, we needed a test that could learn in real time and get smarter as it was testing, so that led us to look at digital scans to “see” the virus and adapt with AI, not chemicals.
The Digital Difference
The field got smaller at this point, so we landed on something called “terahertz scanning”, via a small portable machine that scans your breath almost instantly and lends a highly accurate result in less than two minutes, regardless of symptoms showing. We liked the idea of anyone being able to operate it, it’s high lab scores at over 95% and noninvasive disposable breathalyzer interface. It would be easy for us to design and integrate it into a fun check-in experience. (An onscreen sports mascot cheers you on as you blow into a “noisemaker.”) They had tested swabs and are now testing breathalyzer in several countries and here in the US heading toward the FDA soon. (There is more than one firm exploring this that we are watching.) Till we see something better, we like this approach as it solves for all 3 points on the list as a “future proof” approach to the problem and restores the experience in a “Safest Place on Earth” frictionless way.
Help us get there
That’s where we are to date, and we are open to other methods as well that tick off the above boxes. We’re looking for operators/venues that could benefit from our “safe bubble” digital approach, to perform “time and motion” studies with us to fine tune the guest entry experience in advance as this tech is “market ready” imminent.
I’m former Disney Imagineer Eddie Sotto and I’m passionate about preserving social culture through “shared experiences” and the resurrection of the leisure industry. Too many have worked too hard to create these great experiences we all enjoy. It’s not natural to be in places where we are wary of each other and afraid to be close to others. That is why we formed a diverse team around this civilization level problem.
Learn more at futureproofexperiences.com
Eddie Sotto
