Concerts Are Unlikely To Return Without Coronavirus Vaccine, Says California Governour

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During a yesterday’s (April 14) press briefing, California Governor Gavin Newsom indicated there is no specific timeline for modifying restrictions that have been placed response to the coronavirus outbreak, but said concerts and mass gathering events are the last things to go back to normal.

“The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine,” he said. “So large-scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers, all together across every conceivable difference, health and otherwise, is not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations.”

Several days ago, Dr. Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, one of the key architects of the Affordable Care Act and a special adviser to the director general of the World Health Organization, told The New York Times that he doesn’t think it will be safe to return to concerts, sporting events and other mass public gatherings for another 18 months.

“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,” Emanuel said. “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.”

The pandemic’s global death toll has reached over 129,000, while the global number of cases has surpassed 2,000,000, according to the WHO, which is the health agency of the United Nations.