Panorama 2017 Gallery: A Tribe Called Quest, Solange, Frank Ocean & More
Photo Credit: Vickey Ford for Okayplayer
Photo Credit: Vickey Ford for Okayplayer
At the earliest.
Amid the spread of COVID-19 throughout the world came the canceling of artist and band tours, as well as big name music festivals like Coachella. And although many of these tours and music festivals have been postponed to later this year, a health expert believes that concerts and other large gatherings will not return at any point in 2020.
READ: Coachella Has Officially Been Moved to October Due to Coronavirus
In an article by the New York Times, Zeke Emanuel, director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke about restarting the United States in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, and offered his thoughts on the likelihood of large gatherings being safe before the end of the year.
"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." Emanuel said. "I think those things will be the last to return. Realistically we're talking fall 2021 at the earliest."
"In Hong Kong, Singapore and other places, we're seeing resurgences when they open up and allow more activity. It's going to be this roller coaster, up and down," he added. "The question is: When it goes up, can we do better testing and contact tracing so that we can focus on particular people and isolate them and not have to reimpose shelter-in-place for everyone as we did before?"
In the meantime, artists have been performing from their homes while quarantined. Erykah Badu recently put on a concert celebrating the 10-year anniversary of her album, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh).
Source: New York Times
