NYC, LA Mayors Say Don’t Expect Any Large Concerts This Year

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

NYC, LA Mayors Say Don’t Expect Any Large Concerts This Year

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Who knows how long we’ll remain in lockdown. But even if things start to calm down in the next few months, you probably shouldn’t expect any large-scale concerts in New York City or Los Angeles until next year, 2021. That’s the timeline predicted in comments by the mayors of both cities, at least, as Billboard reports.

“It’s difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon, so I think we should be prepared for that this year,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on CNN today. “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.” And in a weekly conference call on Monday, Garcetti told high-level staff that sporting events and concerts may need to be put on hold until 2021.

Similarly, NYC mayor Bill De Blasio said that large public gatherings would be “one of the last things that we bring back online,” adding, “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 latest update echoes recent predictions made by Center For American Progress oncologist and bioethicist Zeke Emanuel, although it’s probable that smaller, local club shows could resume sooner than next year. New York has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with over 118,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 8000 deaths as of Wednesday. Los Angeles, meanwhile has seen over 10,000 cases and 360 deaths.

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