Many concerned Lollapalooza will cause spike in COVID cases
CHICAGO - As pictures of Lollapalooza continue to spread nationwide, many are concerned that the festival will become known as a "superspreader" event.
"I think that there should have been other protective measures put in place before the event started," said Northwestern pediatrician Dr. Tina Tan.
Dr. Tan doesn’t think the festival should have been canceled, however, she does think masks should have been required by everyone, especially since kids under the age of 12 were in attendance,
"Knowing how transmissible the variant is, and many of the pictures that you saw showed people were not wearing masks, and really crowded in a very small space, that it would not be surprising if we see a surge in COVID cases in the next couple of weeks," said Dr. Tan.
Chicago Department of Public Health Dr. Alison Arwady said they are watching it.
"Certainly we will see some cases associated with this event just because there are hundreds of thousands of people, but let me tell you, more than 90 percent were fully vaccinated, and the rest were recently tested. If 90 percent plus of Chicagoans were vaccinated, we'd probably be putting COVID behind us," said Dr. Arwady.
She is happy with the protections that were in place to enter.
"But really, I feel good for the fact that we required that for this event, and we know we got a lot of young people vaccinated to attend this event," said Dr. Arwady.
She said there is no plan to shut down again, and emphasized the need for people to protect themselves.
"While we get through this Delta surge, we’ve asked folks: please get vaccinated if you haven't already. This is so contagious, but secondly, we've asked everyone to put those masks back on in indoor spaces," said Dr. Arwady.
And as for companies bringing workers back?
"If your employees are highly vaccinated . . . and if right now during the surge they have a mask on, that risk is relatively low," said Dr. Arwady said.
As for cases, Dr. Arwady says they'll have a sense in a week or so on who was infected and how many.