Every year, the first day of summer is welcomed by World Music Day. Everywhere in France, streets are filled with music and rock along with concerts on temporary stages, and cities look like festivals for the day. But in 2020, because of coronavirus, many artists have decided to go digital for World Music Day. Yet, some shows have been performed in the open air, attracting partygoers come here to celebrate “life before”.
In this health crisis context, pictures of gatherings with broken barrier gestures have been widely spread. We saw, especially by the Canal Saint Martin, a crowd gathers for a DJ set. And if the coronavirus epidemic is under controlled in France, the virus is still out there: pictures are worrying those who fear the epidemic might restart. So, may World Music Day be the trigger for a second wave and a new lockdown in France?
Interviewed by France Info, Eric Caumes – head of the infectious and tropical disease unit at the Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, addressed the matter. In this interview, he reminded it is “very likely that outdoors risks be lower than those indoors. I think we shall clearly distinguish the both situations, indoors and outdoors”. He said this type of gathering indoors, in a night club for instance, could not have been acceptable. “It’s inside, it closed spaces that transmission is made. The possibility to transmit the virus outdoors, even being close to one another, are not very well-known, or even not known at all”.
But shall we fear this famous second wave? The answer is unequivocal: yes, Eric Caumes reminds that we shall do everything to avoid this scenario: “On the collective level, we shall remind how important it is to test, track, isolate to break contamination chains. If we do so, very well, there will be no second wave. If we do not so well, there will be a second wave. In countries where there has been a second wave already like in Saudi Arabia or regions like French Guiana”.
