Dr. Anthony Fauci recently shared a very exciting prediction that will likely lift your spirits on this Tuesday morning: The incoming chief medical advisor to the President of the United States posited that live performances could resume as early as this fall—depending on the rate of vaccine distribution, of course. Woohooo!
According to the New York Times, Dr. Fauci made his prediction public during a conference held by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals last week, seeking to "assure people in the industry that the end of their acute economic pain was in sight." Dr. Fauci made it clear that theaters could potentially reopen if the United States were to reach an acceptable level of herd immunity, "which he defined as vaccinating from 70 to 85 percent of the population."
"If everything goes right, this is will occur some time in the fall of 2021," Dr. Fauci reportedly said. "So that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience."
But there's more: although the nation's top infectious disease expert imagines audience members will still be required to wear masks and potentially provide negative COVID-19 test results prior to admittance, he suggested that venues with good ventilation and proper air filters may actually reopen without the need for social distancing.
In his remarks, Dr. Fauci also mentioned an indoor concert mounted by German scientists back in August. Hosting 1,400 people, the Restart-19 experiment sought to identify transmission hot spots in music venues. The results? According to the scientists, similar events would have "low to very low" impact on the spread of COVID-19 as long as organizers guaranteed limited capacity, proper ventilation systems and top-notch hygiene protocols.
This is obviously all very good news.
We're going to leave you with some hopeful words by Dr. Fauci himself, which he shared towards the end of the conference: "We'll be back in the theaters—performers will be performing, audiences will be enjoying it. It will happen." We can't wait for that to happen.
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