Spain uses concert as COVID test trial
Event was not a party but science, doctor says
BARCELONA, Spain — More than 1,000 Barcelona residents gathered Saturday to participate in a medical study to evaluate the effectiveness of same-day coronavirus screening to safely hold events.
After passing an antigen screening, 500 of the volunteers were randomly selected to enjoy a free concert at Barcelona’s Apolo Theater.
The other 500 who didn’t get selected were sent home. They will form a control group that will allow the organizers to analyze whether there was any contagion in the concert hall despite the screening with antigen tests, which, while not as accurate as other types of tests, do produce results in 15 minutes, as compared with several hours or days.
The study is organized by Barcelona’s Fight AIDS and Infectious
Diseases Foundation along with the Primavera Sound music festival. The study was given the go-ahead by the regional authorities in northeastern Catalonia.
“This is not a party; this is a scientific study,” said Dr. Boris Revollo, the virologist who designed the study’s protocols. “This could be useful in all types of events, from cultural events to business congresses to sporting events.”
The 500 allowed into the five-hour music festival of rock groups and disc jockeys had to wear FFP2 face masks and use hand disinfectant.
The face masks stayed put except in the upstairs bar, where organizers allowed volunteers to remove them to have the one drink.
All 1,000 volunteers will also undergo two PCR tests, which have a higher capacity to detect the virus than the same-day antigen test.
The first was on Saturday before the concert, and the second will take place eight days later. Revollo said these PCR tests will allow him and his fellow investigators to determine whether any infected people got past the same-day antigen screen and, if so, whether they infected others inside the theater.
In other global developments:
■ Italy eclipsed Britain on Sunday to become the nation with the worst official coronavirus death toll in Europe.
Italy, where the Continent’s pandemic began, registered 484 COVID-19 deaths in one day, pushing its official toll up to 64,520, while Britain’s stood at 64,267, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
■ Japan’s daily number of coronavirus cases exceeded 3,000 for the first time as the government delays stricter measures for fear of hurting the economy ahead of the holiday season.
The 3,030 new cases, including 621 in Tokyo, took Japan’s national tally to 177,287 with 2,562 deaths, the Health Ministry said Sunday.
■ Chancellor Angela Merkel said she and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed Sunday to step up the country’s lockdown measures beginning Wednesday and extending to Jan. 10 to stop the country’s exponential rise of COVID-19 cases.