Only six attendees at the Love of Lesbian concert at Palau Sant Jordi tested positive for coronavirus during the following 14 days, all of them asymptomatic or mild and with four of them getting infected before the event. These results demonstrate the success of the pilot test carried out by the Festivals x la Cultura Segura platform, which aimed to study the possibility of organizing massive events in indoor venues without physical distancing, but with an FFP2 mask and antigen tests.
In fact, the organizers point out that going to the concert was safer than being outside the Palau Sant Jordi. They say this because the accumulated incidence over 14 days recorded among attendees was 130.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while this proportion rises to 259.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the population of Barcelona.
Doctors from the Fight Against AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundation and the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital, Boris Revollo, Josep Maria Llibre, and Bonaventura Clotet, have concluded that the performance by the group from Sant Vicenç dels Horts was not a COVID super-spreading event, as these types of activities had been categorized until today. Of the total of 5,000 attendees who participated in the test, 4,592 consented to the analysis of their health status during the two weeks after the concert.
Festivals x la Cultura Segura highly values the observational study conducted. "We will continue working under the guidance of the scientific community to keep moving forward together with institutions. The goal is for this established model to generate new proposals within the framework of a strategic plan for pilot tests like the one on March 27 at Palau Sant Jordi," the organizers state.
Pending the finalization of this plan, the Barcelona City Council has approved a new line of subsidies to reduce the costs of organizing concerts in the Anella Olímpica and the Parc del Fòrum this summer. With a budget of 500,000 euros, the aid is intended for city promoters.