The study shows that almost 2300 concertgoers at the festivals Vida, Canet Rock and Cruïlla were infected with the coronavirus, a figure that is 76 percent higher than in the control group, and that 58 percent more than expected were infected by those who visited the festivals.
To be allowed to visit the festival required a negative test result for corona and visitors were required to wear a face mask, but photos from the festivals show that not everyone followed this rule.
After the concerts, the Catalan Minister of Health Josep Maria Argimon said that the festivals should not have taken place at a time when Catalonia had such a high spread of infection.
- I have been self-critical.
We do not yet know if these events have been super-spreader events or not, but they conveyed a sense of normality that we should not have conveyed yet, he told El Pais earlier.
The study studied how many positive corona falls were discovered among festival goers 15 days after they took place.
50,000 concertgoers were compared with a control group with the same distribution of age, gender, housing situation and immunity status.
The three festivals were organized after test concerts that showed no signs of spreading infection.
But these were controlled trials that are not always comparable to real situations and they were performed before the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus became dominant in Spain, points out Carmen Cabezas at the Catalan Public Health Authority.