Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Last Saturday 1,500 volunteers spent ten hours inside Quarterback Immobilien Arena in Leipzig as part of Restart-19, a partially publicly funded research project run by the University Hospital in Halle (Universitätsmedizin, UKH) to understand how coronavirus can travel at indoor events.
During the day, there were effectively three concerts by singer Tim Bendzko: –
- A pre-coronavirus ‘style’ concert with no social distancing at all
- A concert with ‘optimised hygiene measures’, for example, more entrances/exits and some distance between concertgoers
- A concert with full social distancing. Attendees were seated 1.5 metres apart.
Each volunteer was equipped with a tracker device and were asked to wear a face covering and use hand sanitiser containing fluorescent dye. This dye-laced disinfectant then marked ‘high-touch’ areas when the audience simulated going to the washrooms or visiting F&B vendors between shows, as requested by the organisers.
All attendees were tested for #Covid19 in advance, and had their temperatures checked prior to entry.
Other tests included the use of smoke machines to reproduce the spread of aerosols in an indoor arena environment (it is believed the coronavirus can survive in the air for up to three hours) and the simulation of public transport traffic to and from the venue.
The study is being led by Dr. Stefan Moritz, the head of the clinical infectious diseases department at the University Medical Center Halle. He was quoted as saying that the experiment was a response to the fact there was not enough scientific literature available for policymakers about the dangers of live events such as this,
He said “We know the personal contacts at the concert are risky, but we don’t know where they happen. Is it at the entrance? Is it at the bleachers?”.
Using trackers, the researchers monitored the number of times attendees came close to one another, and later used ultraviolet lamps to determine which surfaces were covered with the most fluorescent disinfectant by the end of the day.
Dr. Stefan Moritz said that the results from the study, which was sponsored by the states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, were expected to be ready in early October.
He has already been contacted by researchers in Australia, Belgium and Denmark who plan to carry out similar studies.
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