Fauci Says It Could Be a Year Before Theater Without Masks Feels Normal

But Dr. Fauci said that in green-zone areas — those with very low community transmission — indoor theaters may be able to return sooner if people wear masks. “As long as there is infection in the community, you do not want indoor spaces with crowds,” he said Friday. “But in states, cities or counties in the green zone with low levels of infection, I imagine theaters could maybe open at 25 percent capacity, with people wearing masks, sometime as early as next year.”

Experts said Dr. Fauci’s comments help set the expectation that the coronavirus will be around for some time. “We should not be thinking of the vaccine as a silver bullet,” Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University who previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner, said Friday. “It will take months to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people, and the vaccine may be, at best, 75 percent effective.”

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the first vaccines “are not magic solutions.”

“So we’ll likely still need to continue masks and contact tracing,” he said.

The Broadway League said in a statement on Friday that it would continue to put the health of employees and audiences first as it works to help theaters reopen. “We are working closely with medical experts and members of Governor Cuomo’s recovery team to ensure that all proper health and safety protocols will be in place when the time comes to reopen our theaters,” it said.

Producers have said they will refund all tickets purchased for performances through Jan. 3. Some Broadway theaters are hoping to reopen as soon as March — the earliest planned opening night right now is for the Tracy Letts play “The Minutes,” which is currently set for March 15.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/theater/fauci-theater-reopen.html