People across the country and the world have been in self-isolation for weeks now as the coronavirus pandemic rolls on, and folks are starting to wonder when large gatherings (like concerts) might start to come back. Yesterday, the mayors of New York City and Los Angeles spoke to that, saying they don’t think big concerts will return to their cities in 2020.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room, “It’s difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon, so I think we should be prepared for that this year. I think we all have never wanted science to work so quickly, but until there’s either a vaccine, some sort of pharmaceutical intervention, or herd immunity, the science is the science. And public health officials have made very clear we have miles and miles to walk before we can be back in those environments.”
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio also told CNN yesterday, “I’ve got to see in my city real steady progress, even to start to think about relaxing some of those social distancing standards even a little bit. I want to get people back to work, of course. I want to get kids back to school. But I think it will take months to go through that whole sequence. And the last thing I want to do is gather 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one place. That’s like the exact opposite of social distancing.”
This comes shortly after California Governor Gavin Newsom predicted that large-scale events wouldn’t return to California before a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.