German Concerts Experiment

[manicinsomniac]

Has anyone read about these:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53873181?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5f4130d8ce818c066351861a%26Top%20German%20singer%20headlines%20Covid%20concerts%262020-08-22T15%3A10%3A40.791Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:9339b5e5-6ef2-41ff-a9c9-c6a6380c7ca6&pinned_post_asset_id=5f4130d8ce818c066351861a&pinned_post_type=share

Not sure if that link will work but this is what the article says:

Tim Bendzko, a singer-songwriter who became famous after winning Germany's Bundesvision song contest, is headlining all three coronavirus concerts in the city of Leipzig

As we reported earlier, the concerts - called Restart-19 - are being staged as a massive experiment in which scientists will investigate how the virus spreads in mass indoor events

The first concert is being staged as it would have been before the pandemic, the second one with more hygiene measures and social distancing, and the third with half the numbers and people standing 1.5m apart

Everyone taking part is healthy, aged 18 to 50 and has tested negative for coronavirus

The study by Halle University comes after Germany recorded its highest number of new Covid-19 infections since the end of April. More than 2,000 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections up to 232,082, the Robert Koch Institute reported

I don't have any ethical issues with it if they are all willing volunteers and it would be amazing if the Arts could get off the ground sooner rather than later.

But I don't understand how it can work. If all participants have tested negative for Covid then nobody can catch it at any of the styles of concert, can they?

I presume the experiment is to check whether pre-symptomatic infection ( maybe too early to test positive, especially if the test is done a day or two before the concert) and false negatives have an impact on spread.

If there is no spread on any of the three concerts it would indicate that it could be OK to hold live events as before, as long as everyone has a negative test.

Cool now that's an experiment I could get on board with!

That is awesome. Well done them, will be really interesting to see the results.

Ah ok, I didn't realise you had to have had the virus for a while before a test would be positive.

Makes more sense.

I'm not sure either! I know it's an average 5 days before symptoms- so you could potentially be exposed to the virus, have the test 2 days later, when there's still not much virus around and less likely to be positive, go to the concert on day 4 and then develop symptoms the next day having spread it around and about. Quicker, on the spot saliva tests would really help with this.

Good article here:
www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/06/how-negative-covid-19-test-can-mislead/613246/