Since the return of live music, Jason Isbell has been very vocal about the importance of COVID safety measures at his concerts. The musician has asked venue owners to get attendees to provide a proof of vaccination at all of his shows, and he event canceled a concert after a venue refused. Now, Isbell has gotten the chance to get some COVID safety advice from the president’s Chief Medical Advisor himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Speaking to Fauci in a video call, Isbell first asked how to speak to his friends and family who are reluctant to receive the COVID vaccine. Along with debunking the myth that the vaccine was rushed through the trial period, Fauci said the main thing to keep in mind is to not make people feel guilty about their hesitations:
“One of the things you gotta be careful for what you don’t do, is to make them actually feel guilty and to point your finger at them and say, ‘You’re crazy, you’re stupid.’ That just doesn’t work. What you try and do is to just get into the conversation and have them articulate to you what are the reasons why they’re hesitant, because some of them are very valid questions. If you give them the answer to the valid question, you might turn them around.”
Isbell then asked Fauci’s advice on how to keep concertgoers, staff, and performers safe at live music events. Along with requiring masking, vaccines, and proof of negative tests, Fauci said a big safety measure is holding outdoor concerts. “What you can do as an entertainer: outdoor concerts as opposed indoor concerts,” Fauci said. “I think that’s the most important thing because it really is true that the risk of infection in an indoor, not optimally vented place is dramatically higher likelihood of getting infected to an outdoor one.”
Watch Isbell’s full conversation with Dr. Fauci above.