Five thousand music lovers are expected to attend a rock concert in Barcelona after passing the Covid-19 screening on the same day, to test the plan’s effectiveness in prevent the outbreak of the virus at major cultural events.
The show Saturday by the Spanish band Love of Lesbian is courtesy of the country’s health authorities. While the rest of Spain is limited to gatherings of no more than four in closed spaces, the concerts will be able to mix freely, although face masks are mandatory.
People with heart disease, cancer, or those who have been in contact with someone with Covid-19 for the past few weeks have been asked not to register. Buyers chose tickets between three venues in Barcelona where they must undergo a rapid antigen test on Saturday morning. Those with negative results receive a code on their mobile phone confirming their ticket for the show at the city’s Palau Sant Jordi starting at 7pm.
Organizers say this is the first commercial event of this magnitude held in Europe at the time of the pandemic.
The show is sold out. Tickets, ranging from € 23- € 28 (£ 19.70- £ 24), include the cost of the test and the high-quality face mask which is mandatory only when eating or drinking at designated areas .
The concert is backed by local authorities and experts from the Fight Aids and Infectious Diseases Foundation in Barcelona, which organized a case study around a concert of less than 500 people in December. They said the results of that initial case study showed that pre-screening with antigen testing and the use of face masks to prevent infections at the party was successful despite the absence of social distance rules.
“This is another small step to be able to hold cultural events and events” during the pandemic, said Dr Boris Revollo, the pathologist involved in the design of health protocols. .
As well as being 10 times the size of the concert in December, this time no control group will be held outside the concert hall.
Instead, concertgoers have agreed that public health authorities can tell the Revollo team if they come down with a coronavirus in the weeks after the concert. With that information, the Revollo team will analyze infection levels among the 5,000 concerts compared to the general population to see if there are any disorders that may be appearing at the ceremony.