‘The Ripple Effect Is a Major Concern.’ Chicagoans Worry About the Aftermath of Lollapalooza as the Delta Variant Surges

When music fan Noah Zelinsky bought tickets to the Chicago music festival Lollapalooza in May, he thought it might signal something of a return to normalcy after more than a year of isolation. “There’s so much pent up excitement, being the first major thing back,” he says. But a lot can change in two months. “Now, there’s a lot of fear countering that.” This weekend, thousands of Lollapalooza attendees swept into Grant Park in the midst of a spike in the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus. Leading up to the festival, Chicago’s COVID-19 daily case rate was quintuple what it was a month ago, albeit nowhere near the heights of this spring. Recent music festivals, including the Verknipt festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, and Rolling Loud in Miami, have been connected to outbreaks among their attendees and surrounding communities. And videos from the weekend showed festival workers at the gates barely looking at vaccination cards, packed crowds with few masks in sight, and kids rushing into the festival grounds completely unsupervised. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Whether or not Lollapalooza, which ran from July 29 through Aug. 1, held COVID-19 at bay could make the festival a tipping point in whether or not the country’s triumphant reopening continues as planned throughout the summer and fall. “I think it has the makings [of a superspreader event],” Theresa Chapple-McGruder, a Chicago area...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized culturepod feature Music Source Type: news