“Eager for a live music show after months of social distancing, more than 1,000 Barcelona residents gathered Saturday to participate in a medical study to evaluate the effectiveness of same-day coronavirus screening to safely hold cultural events,” write Joseph Wilson and Emilio Morenatti in Saturday’s (12/12) Associated Press. “After passing an antigen screening, 500 of the volunteers were randomly selected to enjoy a free concert inside Barcelona’s Apolo Theater. The other 500 who didn’t get selected were sent home. They will form a control group…. Antigen tests … produce results in 15 minutes.… The study is organized by Barcelona’s Fight AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundation along with the Primavera Sound music festival…. Dr. Boris Revollo, the virologist who designed the study’s protocols, … insisted that the use of same-day antigen screening for large events wasn’t a substitute for face masks and other sanitation rules, but he believed it could be a powerful tool to help make large events safe enough until vaccines are widespread enough to beat back COVID-19.… The 500 allowed into the five-hour music festival … had to wear FFP2 face masks and use hand disinfectant…. All 1,000 of the volunteers will also undergo two PCR tests.”
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