Production on Mission: Impossible 7 has been shut down due to a positive coronavirus test – but did they really have to stop filming?
The latest movie in the action franchise starring Tom Cruise was filming in the U.K. when the positive test occurred. “We have temporarily halted production on “Mission: Impossible 7” until June 14th, due to positive coronavirus test results during routine testing,” a Paramount spokesperson said on Thursday. “We are following all safety protocols and will continue to monitor the situation.”
However, there are other safety protocols – ones that would have even allowed the production to go on. Take Hungary for example, where film productions were allowed to continue while the country was under a partial two-week long lockdown. This was possible because of on-site testing and a strict protocol being maintained.
“We underwent a six-week audit to achieve the approval of UCLA’s research group. Our laboratory with the highest progressivity level and “our pandemic plans” met UCLA’s criterion. For film crew testing we developed an automated testing system to decrease risk factors. Working with large film crews we need to react extremely quickly in case of infection. If somebody becomes suspicious during filming, our testing teams are able to test hundreds of crew members on site within a few hours and in multiple locations we test hundreds of people daily.
Basically, data-processing takes the most time, therefore each tested patient has their own QR-code that reduces the risk of data failures. The system is GDPR compatible and our own improvement. We built another pandemic protocol for extras, depending on how close they get to each other and to main actors.” – was told by Dr. Andras Tamasi, the CEO of Smart Covid Center, a microbiological laboratory in Budapest.
We were interviewing András Tamási, MD, the director of Smart Covid Center, we asked him about the testing protocol. He explained the whole testing process;
“We reach our partner, the film studio itself, and we have a strict protocol which we need to merge with the Hungarian system. Each of the film has someone who is in charge of the covid testing. We also separate groups, and we have a test plan within the films. We coordinate the system itself, as we do the airplane’s covid testing as well, we pick up the film crew from that point.
If someone is very important, we also go to the hotel and we can test at the hotel room as well, or in the studios or outside the studio. We have the biggest laboratories in Hungary and we have 3 main locations where we test”.
He thinks that the main difference between the Hungarian and the American system is the main contact definition. In Hungary if we both wear masks, and either you or I would be positive, we are not considered as main contacts meanwhile in America it is. That’s why the “Mission: Impossible 7” shooting had to stop in the U.K., and in Hungary it didn’t.
