A COVID concert experiment in Spain has returned some encouraging results
You might remember the story of a few weeks back regarding a test concert held in Barcelona, Spain, using volunteers to measure the transmission of COVID-19 among a large group of people.
To recap, 5,000 fans were invited to an indoor show to see a group called Love of Lesbian. Before being granted tickets, they all had to test negative. They had to wear masks and had access to sanitizing stations, but no social distancing was required. People were on top of each other just like at a concert in the Before Times.
Fourteen days later, only six of those 5,000 fans tested positive for COVID. What’s more is that out of those six, it was determined that four got infected somewhere other than the concert. That means just two of 5,000 got sick because they went to the gig. That rate of transmission was less than half of what was seen in the general population of Spain.
What did researchers learn? Masking up and keeping hands clean virtually eliminated the risk of getting the coronavirus even though people were packed in pretty tightly, cheering and singing along.
This could indicate that going to gigs is possible provided that certain precautions are taken. You can bet that anyone who stages large gatherings will be looking very closely at this data. And this before we account for widespread vaccinations. Encouraging, no?
(Via the BBC)
