About ten days after the event, Chicago health authorities announced that 203 cases of Covid had been identified after the Lollapalooza festival. According to the Associated Press, this figure is presented by the organizers as a predictable figure and the contaminations did not give rise to any hospitalizations or deaths.
"This is not unexpected
," Allison Arwady, the city's health commissioner, told a press conference.
This is not a super-propagative event. But it is clear that in the presence of hundreds of thousands of spectators, we expected there to be a few cases. ”
The music festival, which spanned four days from July 29 to August 1, drew around 385,000 people to a lakeside park.
Critics have been heard about the advisability of maintaining such an event in the context of the epidemic outbreak.
On images recorded during the festival, we can see the crowd gathered on the festival site and on public transport, a crowd in which few people are masked.
Last year, the festival was canceled due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
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Lori Lightfoot, mayor of the city, as well as other local personalities defended their decision to maintain the event, citing the security protocols in place at the site.
Festival-goers had to present either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test.
City officials further estimate that around 90% of spectators were vaccinated.
Allison Arwady explains that the number of cases includes those who tested positive during or after the festival, which would therefore include people who arrived at the site already infected.
For example, three residents of the city of Chicago who tested positive admitted to attending the festival the day, or the next day, of their symptoms.
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The doctor also explains that the city is investigating other cases related to the festival, but does not expect the event to have a significant impact on infection rates.
"If there were to be an explosion linked to Lollapalooza, it would have already taken place,"
she said. Of those who tested positive, there were 138 people residing in the state of Illinois but outside of Chicago, 58 lived in the city and 7 outside the state. Almost 80% of them were under 30 years old.
