Experts: Concerts might not return until FALL 2021

It seems forever ago when it was okay to mingle with strangers at concerts. And it might be awhile before we do that again, thanks to COVID-19 and the chances it could come back in waves. If the virus behaves like that, then life will not get back to normal until we get a vaccine and other treatments to mitigate the infection.

A recent article in the New York Times sought to come up with predictions as to when we might be able to go to concerts again. Note the bit I’ve bolded.

“Restarting the economy has to be done in stages, and it does have to start with more physical distancing at a work site that allows people who are at lower risk to come back. Certain kinds of construction, or manufacturing or offices, in which you can maintain six-foot distances are more reasonable to start sooner. Larger gatherings — conferences, concerts, sporting events — when people say they’re going to reschedule this conference or graduation event for October 2020, I have no idea how they think that’s a plausible possibility. I think those things will be the last to return. Realistically we’re talking fall 2021 at the earliest.

“Restaurants where you can space tables out, maybe sooner. In Hong Kong, Singapore and other places, we’re seeing resurgences when they open up and allow more activity. It’s going to be this roller coaster, up and down. The question is: When it goes up, can we do better testing and contact tracing so that we can focus on particular people and isolate them and not have to reimpose shelter-in-place for everyone as we did before?”

Whoa. Fall 2021?

(Via MetalSucks and Amber.)