30,000 visitors from 143 countries will visit Barcelona for the three-day Mobile World Congress (MWC), which begins on Monday – and each will have to pass through a COVID-19 test area with 80 booths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event received lukewarm participation from some major technology companies, including Telefonica, Orange, Huawei, Lenovo, Vodafone, but Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung are skipping the event altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The industry hopes that this year’s event, which is divided between physical, virtual and hybrid activities, will provide a blueprint for future business and corporate events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a pre-event reception on Sunday at the La Boqueria market in Barcelona, MWC guests and stakeholders networked with much excitement and greeted each other with elbows or fists after a year of isolation, closures and video conferencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scale of the test operation is enormous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Saturday alone, 10,000 people were tested at the huge Fira venue, where MWC is being held, as preparations were made for the event.<\/p>\n\n\n