Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease specialist, told performing arts professionals at a virtual conference on Saturday that he believed theaters and other venues could reopen “sometime in the fall of 2021”, depending vaccination implementation and suggested that the public may still be required to wear masks for some time.
At the conference, held by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Dr. Fauci sought to assure people in the industry that the end of his acute economic crisis was in sight, while emphasizing that the timetable depended on the country reaching an effective level. herd immunity, which he defined as vaccinating 70% to 85% of the population.
“If all goes well, it will happen sometime in the fall of 2021,” said Fauci, “so that when we get to the beginning of autumn, you can make people feel safe on stage as well as people in the audience. “
The industry conference, which typically attracts thousands of attendees and features hundreds of live presentations, went completely online this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, underscoring the seismic impact the outbreak had on performing arts. According to the results of a survey released this week by American for the Arts, a national advocacy group, financial losses in the field are estimated at $ 14.8 billion, more than a third of nonprofit artistic and cultural organizations laid off or licensed their employees and a tenth “not sure” that they can survive the pandemic.
Speaking to Maurine Knighton, director of the arts program at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Dr. Fauci said that if the vaccine distribution is successful, cinemas with good ventilation and adequate air filters may not need to place too many restrictions for performances in the fall – except asking audience members to wear masks, which he suggested could remain the norm for some time.
“I think you can start going back to almost full seating capacity,” he said.
Dr. Fauci was asked about the frustration among some performing arts professionals that restaurants, bars, gyms and places of worship were allowed to open in some states, while theaters and other venues remained closed. In response, Dr. Fauci encouraged them to do more research on the quality of ventilation in their cinemas and to explore how improving airflow can affect transmission.
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Answers to your vaccine questions
While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most are likely to put medical professionals and residents of long-term care institutions first. If you want to understand how this decision is being made, this article will help you.
Life will only return to normal when society as a whole obtains sufficient protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they will only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens, at most, within the first two months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to infection. An increasing number of vaccines against coronavirus are showing robust protection against disease. But it is also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they are infected, because they have only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists still do not know whether vaccines also block coronavirus transmission. For now, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid crowds indoors and so on. Once enough people are vaccinated, it will be very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we, as a society, achieve this goal, life may begin to approach something normal in the fall of 2021.
Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially be authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical tests that provided these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. This remains a possibility. We know that people naturally infected with the coronavirus can transmit it as long as they have no cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be studying this issue intensively as vaccines are launched. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to consider possible spreaders.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is given as an injection into the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection will not be different from the one you took before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines and none have reported serious health problems. But some of them experienced short-term discomfort, including pain and flu symptoms that usually last for a day. People may need to plan a day off from work or school after the second injection. Although these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system facing the vaccine and developing a potent response that will provide lasting immunity.
No. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to prepare the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slide inward. The cell uses mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any given time, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce to make their own proteins. After these proteins are produced, our cells fragment the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that our cells make can survive just a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is designed to resist the cell’s enzymes a little more, so that cells can produce extra proteins from the virus and stimulate a stronger immune response. But mRNA can only last a few days at most, before it is destroyed.
He referred to a German study of an indoor concert, staged by scientists in August, which suggested that such events had a “low to very low” impact on the spread of the virus, as long as the organizers ensured adequate ventilation, strict hygiene protocols and capacity limited.
And he suggested that the field needed more studies of this type. “What the performing arts need to do is do a little more than what the Germans are doing,” he said.
Dr. Fauci also said that the venues may imitate the rules of some airlines in the United States and require audience members to provide negative test results to be admitted.
Distribution of the vaccine in the United States is already delayed, with state and local public health officials struggling to administer the vaccine to hospital staff and elderly people at risk. Most people are not sure when they can be protected.
Recognizing the pandemic fatigue that is being felt across the country and the eagerness of artists and artistic administrators to get back to work, Dr. Fauci urged people to be vigilant about public health measures so that the industry could reopen.
“We will be back in theaters – the artists will perform, the audience will enjoy themselves,” he said. “It will happen.”