BERLIN (AP) – Germany held a pop music concert on Saturday to see how participants can spread a coronavirus if they had it.
German researchers COVID-19 filled the component of an arena in Leipzig with volunteers, gathering knowledge in a “real” simulation of a pop concert but with strict fitness and protection controls.
Around 1,500 more people took part in the experiment conducted at Halle University Hospital, each of whom tested for coronavirus in advance, tested negative and had to wear a protective mask during the day.
Researchers provided all volunteers with touch markers to record their routes in the sand and track aerosols, the small debris that the virus can bring, which they emitted when they mingle and talked. Fluorescent disinfectants were used to highlight the surfaces, most affected during the simulated concert.
German pop singer Tim Bendzko gave the impression of creating as realistic an audience reaction as you can imagine in 3 stories.
Afterward, he said he hoped the day felt more sterile and felt like an experience, but that the crowd at the concert.
“We had a lot of fun,” he said. We survived the driving concerts this summer and in that sense, for us, it is a first step towards normalcy.
In the first scenario, which simulated the very beginning of a pandemic, the spectators were kept together in combination in the room without social distancing. In the second, the researchers instituted hygiene measures and greater social distances among the volunteers. In the third, a distance of 1. 5 meters (5 feet) is strictly observed between the participants.
Stefan Moritz, who led the study, said the researchers had only a third of the expected volunteers, in part because many Germans are still absent during the summer holidays and partly because of the concern to participate even with the security measures taken. went well.
“We are satisfied with the figures,” he told reporters. ” We have quality data. “
The effects of the study are expected in 4-6 weeks, he said.
Overall, Germany has been praised for its pandemic management with its immediate reaction and physically powerful evidence. It has recorded 9,267 virus deaths so far, a quarter of the number of virus deaths in Britain.
But the numbers have risen recently, and the German Center for Disease Control reported 2,034 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, the first time the national backlog has surpassed 2,000 since the end of April.
The Robert Koch Institute said coronavirus outbreaks are reported in nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and “especially among travelers and in the context of devout events or the family circle. “
“It is very worrying,” the firm said.
All 16 German states are in the process of resuming training in schools. The potential dangers of forming virus groups in educational institutions and then spreading to families and beyond society have been a cause for great concern.
In Berlin, one of the first states to return, at least 41 schools reported this week that students had been inflamed and many of them had been quarantined.
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This story corrects the spelling of Leipzig.
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