I found looking at the collection. of 27 photos of the crowds (on Buzzfeed) at Chicago’s Lollapalooza concert disturbing. These aren’t the faces of people at a Trump rally cheering a sadistic dictator wannabe appealing to their most hateful and violent impulses.
I would venture to say that the larger percentage of those who attended Lollapalooza are either not particularly political or are anti-Trump. I assume most of them were familiar with many or even most of the 150 artists or groups who performed there.
This geezer only recognized Journey (still around since the 1970’s), Foo Fighters, and of course Miley Cyrus who closed out the final night. She famously said Trump is a 'completely racist, sexist, hateful ass-hole though 'I rather doubt any of the other performers would take any amount of money to play at a Trump rally.
Proof of vaccination was required for attendance but as we know know even the a small percentage of the vaccinated are testing positive because of the highly contagious Delta Variant. It’s been estimated that 385,000 attended at least one of the four days of the concert.
In looking at all the crowd photos I saw only one person wearing a mask and this was made from a bandana and two people with what appeared to be bandanas around their necks. I didn’t see any masks specifically made to protect against Covid.
Not that you need a refresher about Delta Covid, this is what an MIT website says about how long it takes for someone exposed to the Delta variant of Covid to become contagious and to test positive compared to the pervious predominant version of the virus. Here’s what the American Society for Microbiology says about how dangerous it is.
Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Lori Lightfoot, defended her decision to allow the concert to be held this year after last year’s concert was cancelled due to Covid.
Lightfoot sought to allay people’s concerns during a Sunday news conference, saying she remains confident in Lolla’s precautionary measures.
The mayor said street festivals have been held and baseball games played at Sox Park and Wrigley Field without them turning into super-spreader events.
Those events are significantly smaller than Lollapalooza, though. For example, Sox Park reaches capacity at about 40,600 people, while Megan thee Stallion said in an Instagram post her Saturday set at Lollapalooza had a crowd of 180,000.
“I understand the fascination with Lolla, but the fact is, in this city, … we’ve been able to open but do it with care because of the vaccinations,” Lightfoot said. (Reference)
Is Lori Lightfoot oblivious to the scientific data about how dangerous the Delta variant of Covid is?
It seems to me she may have been engaging in conformation bias in her need to find reasons to hold the famous concert this year and may have ignored the science that said it would be very risky.
I admire Lightfoot as a progressive. She was proactive in leading the city’s response to the pandemic (though in their section on this Wikipedia hasn’t been updated to include the criticism of Lollapoolza). But even a graduate of The University of Michigan and The University of Chicago Law School can succumb to confirmation bias. In a city that hasn’t had a Republican major since William Hale Thompson (1927-1931) so no matter what happens as a result of Lollapalooza, Lightfoot, who was elected in 2019, is probably a shoo-in to be reelected for a second term unless she runs for higher office. Her current approval rating is 48% with crime as the top issue.
Lori Lightfoot is no Ron DeSantis but you can bet if it was up to him to approve a gigantic event he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. The mere fact I draw a parallel between them is upsetting to me.
The mayor gave Fox News the excuse for this article: ”Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot attends Lollapalooza music festival amid reinstating COVID restrictions — The mayor was caught with a mask off while hanging out with celebrities.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot faced criticism for continuing to hold a music festival in the midst of reinstating COVID-19 restrictions.
Despite announcing plans to resume more pandemic restrictions in the city, the Democrat mayor continued to host Lollapalooza, which is one of the largest music festivals in the country.
"At the same time she's threatening possible restrictions if cases rise above 200 per day, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is moving forward with plans to bring 100,000 a day to Grant Park for Lollapalooza," Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt said.
Lightfoot later appeared herself at Lollapalooza saying to the massive crowds "Thank you for masking up and vaxing up." Despite frequent criticisms against holding the festival, Lightfoot continued to defend her decision.
"It’s outdoors. We’ve been having large-scale events all over the city since June without major problems or issues," Lightfoot said. "The Lolla team has been phenomenal. They’ve hired their own public health experts who’ve been working hand in glove with us since we started these discussions."
Lollapalooza was previously cancelled in 2020 due to pandemic concerns. This cancellation reportedly cost "at least $35 million in sales" and "nearly $9 million in lost earnings."
However, in the middle of various concerns over the Delta variant as well as new COVID-19 restrictions, many people viewed holding the music festival as a "super-spreader" event.
She rationalized that Chicago had been having large outdoor events without problems since June but the Delta Covid spread so quickly that by July it was the dominant variant in the country. (Reference)
Note that she said “thank you for masking up” to a crowd that seemed to be 99.99% unmasked, speaking no doubt in the past tense rather than the present tense.
We may never know what Lightfoot’s health advisors told her about approving the concert. Perhaps they told her there would be no problem. However, if they advised against it and she held it anyway and it turns out to have been a super-spreader event she should be held as accountable as any Republican.
Wednesday, Aug 4, 2021 · 5:28:46 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
UPDATE
The more I read about this the more I see that Mayor Lightfoot based her decision on the assumption that requiring proof of vaccination was all that was necessary to mitigate the risk. What she didn’t address as far as I can see is that the Provincetown outbreak was among the vaccinated, even though many of the people were indoors. It showed how the Delta Variant could hit them too. I think common sense suggests that even outside the people were crammed so close together and so enthusiastic that they might have well be inside as far as spreading the virus if they were among the small percentage of fully vaccinated people who could be carriers. As is being noted by epidemiologists these people then can spread the virus to others who are both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and so on.
