As compared to the year-ago period, the number of people expected to attend an engagement or wedding is likely to rise significantly during November-December 2021, with fewer citizens now considering the risk of contracting COVID to be high in such events.
New Delhi: As the wedding season kicked off on a high note, people have become complacent, a survey conducted by LocalCircles showed. As compared to the year-ago period, the number of people expected to attend an engagement or wedding is likely to rise significantly during November-December 2021, with fewer citizens now considering the risk of contracting COVID to be high in such events.
A whopping 76 per cent of people believe the risk of COVID spread is average, low, or non-existent, the survey revealed. While 3% of citizens said that there is no risk, 2% did not have an opinion.
“This is due to a combination of various factors: declining cases of Covid-19 across the country, confidence due to vaccination, and Covid-19 fatigue in general,” the survey, which received 17,000 responses from citizens across 319 districts of India said. These findings showed that the country may witness a surge in COVID-19 cases in the upcoming days.
On being asked about their plan to attend engagements and weddings in person, only 12 per cent said that they were invited but taking a pass due to COVID, while 44 per cent of respondents said that they haven’t attended any event yet but they will attend a few in coming weeks. When citizens were asked a similar question during 2020 around a similar time, 35 per cent of citizens had said ”they were invited to attend but taking a pass this year due to COVID”.
Experts Suggestion
Experts have suggested a safe practice for organizers and attendees of weddings like holding the weddings and engagement events as much outdoor as possible, avoiding buffets and bar setups and having sit down dinners or drinks with a set place for each guest with their name tags. Moreover, masks and sanitisers should be furnished to every guest if they are not carrying one.
Other suggestions included minimizing the singing or music events indoors or keeping them outdoors and limiting the time of the actual wedding ceremony to one hour. Similarly, they ask local administrators to keep a watch on the daily caseload, the compliances to wedding guidelines and update rules accordingly if the daily caseloads rise to address the situation.
