Primavera Sound finds no infection rate in trial for gig with no social distancing
18 January 2021, 13:00 | Updated: 18 January 2021, 14:51
The Barcelona festival has taken part in a recent trial event, dubbed PRIMACOV, which saw 1,000 people 'attend' a gig in a 1,600 capacity venue.
Primavera Sound has taken part in a COVID-19 trial that has resulted in no infections.
As reported by NME, the Barcelona festival joined forces with the Hospital Germans Trias in Barcelona and the Fight AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundations for the trial, which was dubbed PRIMACOV.
463 out of 1,000 participants ended up attending the gig, with 496 placed in a 'control group' with no access to the venue.
A same-day antigen COVID-19 test was taken by all participants, who were then made to return eight days later to take a follow-up test.
The trial found that there were no positive results among the 463 people who attended the event, while there were two positives found among the 'control group' of 496.
READ MORE: Is Glastonbury Festival 2021 cancelled and what will happen to tickets?
The authors of the studio, Boris Revollo and Josep M Llibre, believe that the rapid testing used at their event could be easily rolled out at other music events.
They said of their findings: "Attending a live music concert staged with a series of security measures that included a negative antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 done on the same day, was not associated with an increase in COVID-19 infections".
They added: "Hopefully this data will pave the way to save live concerts during the COVID pandemic."
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While this study may have breathed fresh hope into festivals this year, it remains to be seen if anything will happen quickly enough in time for Glastonbury 2021.
The Somerset festival - which was due to take place from 25-29 June with Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift as headliners - is currently scheduled to take place from 23- 27 June 2021 instead with tickets rolled over.
Michael Eavis had the COVID-19 vaccine on New Year's Eve and shared his hopes that it would be rolled out to the general population so Glastonbury can go ahead.
NHS South East shared a photo of the festival founder getting the jab, alongside the caption: "Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis, 85, had his Covid-19 vaccination today on New Year’s Eve. Michael said: Wouldn't it be wonderful to get the majority of our population vaccinated before June 2021, so that we can celebrate next summer in proper 'Glastonbury style'".
While Emily Eavis has said on more than one occasion that the festival isn't cancelled "yet," it is a race against time to see if the festival can take place in June this year.
However, it's not likely to be that much of a wait, since we shouldn't know much later than March if the festival will not take place this year. Why? Fans will likely be told ahead of the scheduled April resale before more tickets are bought.
According to Somerset Live, speaking about the cancellation of the 2020 event in March last year, Ben Challis - a lawyer for the festival - said: "We had just announced the first 60 acts on the Thursday, and then the weekend after Boris Johnson made his speech saying there was going to be a lockdown, and we were about to start our build, so we had a few days of extremely difficult conversations.
"We cancelled early compared to everyone else because of our build phase, and I got some criticism from other festivals, who were asking, 'why have you cancelled?'
"They said, 'it doesn't look good for the festival sector as a whole', but there was no realistic hope for us to start the build, and even if it had all cleared up by May, it would have been too late for us."
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