Researchers in Germany may have some good news for frustrated concertgoers across the world whose activities have been constrained by the spread of the coronavirus, The New York Times reported.
An analysis of an indoor concert staged by scientists in August suggests that the impact of such events on the spread of the coronavirus is "low to very low" as long as organizers ensure adequate ventilation, strict hygiene protocols and limited capacity, according to the German researchers who conducted the study.
"There is no argument for not having such a concert. The risk of getting infected is very low," Dr. Michael Gekle, part of the team at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg who conducted the study, said in an interview. The study was posted online and announced at a news conference on Thursday but has not yet been peer reviewed.
The test event, one of the first close examinations of how a virus might be transmitted among a crowd at an indoor venue, was closely watched in the global entertainment industry, which has been hampered by lockdown restrictions in most countries since the pandemic broke out early this year. Some experts expressed skepticism about the results, saying they needed to be replicated and reviewed, and that more information was needed about how researchers used the modeling.
"Obviously if masks are going to work for larger gigs then that's big progress. We are hoping for more news by the end of the year," said Emily Eavis, co-organizer of the Glastonbury Festival, an outdoor event that drew crowds of about 135,000 people before the pandemic shut it down this summer, though she added it was much too early to tell.
And researchers in other countries are working on similar studies in the hope of finding a safe and viable way to reopen nightlife even with the pandemic still present. "We are monitoring closely and with huge interest all the similar initiatives in Europe," Marta Pallarès, a spokeswoman for Primavera Sound, an annual festival in Spain, said in an email.
Primavera Sound's organizers are helping to conduct a study testing whether rapid coronavirus tests can be an efficient screening measure for live music events. "All these projects are tremendously important in order to secure a new future for live music," she added.
