Chicago Says Lollapalooza Shows No Sign of Superspreader Event
Chicago Says Lollapalooza Shows No Sign of Superspreader Event
(Bloomberg) -- Chicago health officials said the city’s Lollapalooza concert shows no sign of being a superspreader event for Covid-19 earlier this month even with 203 cases being reported by attendees.
Those infected may have been exposed elsewhere, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago’s health department commissioner. Anyone diagnosed with Covid on or after attending the concert is included, and may or may not have been infected at the concert, she said. Of those, 58 people were Chicago residents, 138 were other parts of Illinois and seven were from out of state, she said.
“There’s no evidence at this point of a super-spreader event, and there’s no evidence of substantial impact to Chicago’s Covid epidemiology,” Arwady said during a press conference on Thursday, 14 days after the start of the four-day concert in Chicago. “Clearly with hundreds of thousands of people attending Lollapalooza, we would expect to see some cases.”
Lollapolooza, which took place July 29 to Aug. 1, drew an estimated 385,000 people, and approximately 90% or more were vaccinated based on measures taken at the site, Arwady said. Officials estimate that among vaccinated concert attendees, 4 in 10,000 were diagnosed with Covid, and among the unvaccinated attendees, an estimated 16 in 10,000 were diagnosed with Covid. As of Wednesday, no hospitalizations or deaths were reported, Arwady said, noting that her team continues to follow up. The city used 88% as a conservative estimate of those that were vaccinated for its calculations, she said.
Chicago case investigators reach out to any resident who is diagnosed with Covid-19, not just related to the concert. Generally, the city does extra investigation for large events. The city will continue to track cases, she said.
“We would have seen a surge if we were going to see a surge at this point, by my estimation,” Arwady said.
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