Covid-19: facing the Omicron variant, the Grammy Awards postponed, the 100% virtual Sundance Festival – archyworldys

The 2022 film and music award season promises to be once again shaken up by the health crisis. The Grammy Awards ceremony has been postponed indefinitely due to “Uncertainties surrounding the Omicron variant”, while the Sundance Film Festival has decided to be completely virtual again this year, the organizers of the two events announced on Wednesday 5 January.

“Organizing the show on January 31 simply involves too many risks”, explains in a press release the Academy of the American disc, adding that a new date for the evening of the Grammy Awards, envisaged in Los Angeles, will be announced ” shortly “. The day before, the organizers of the Golden Globes decided to maintain their awards ceremony scheduled for Sunday January 9, but without an audience or television broadcast.

Omicron has become the ultra-majority Sars-CoV-2 variant in the United States, where over a million new cases of contamination were recorded in twenty-four hours Monday, the highest level on record.

Citing “Surprisingly high transmission rates of the Omicron variant”, the organizers of the Sundance Film Festival, which was to open January 20 in Utah, for their part had to resolve to abandon the planned events in the flesh. The festival will therefore take place again “This year online”, they deplore, regretting not being able to implement “The hybrid experience” that they had prepared.