Mexico City Hosts Vive Latino Festival With 70,000 People Despite Warnings About Coronavirus Pandemic

Mexico City held a giant music festival over the weekend in spite of the coronavirus pandemic that has spread across the globe and has officials in other countries banning large gatherings of people.

The festival, Vive Latino, was held on Saturday and Sunday, and organizers said that more 70,000 tickets were sold for each day. Some artists had cancelled their appearances due to fear of the coronavirus, but most artists, like Guns N’ Roses, still performed.

Ticket holders had to pass through a fever checking station in order to enter the festival, and the smell of hand sanitizer was in the air. Only a few people wore a mask.

Some concert-goers told reporters that they only went because they paid a lot of money for their tickets, and did not want to miss out, although they knew that being at the concert could be unsafe. They tried to sell the tickets that they paid 5,000 pesos ($228) for, but said they were not offered enough.

Ramirez said that he believed the government would’ve canceled the festival if it really was a threat to the audience’s health.

The deputy director of the Health Department, Hugo López-Gatell, said that the event was able to go on because Mexico is still in phase one of the pandemic with isolated cases. There are 41 confirmed coronavirus cases across Mexico.

100 CELEBRITIES WHO DIED IN 2019 – TRIBUTE SLIDESHOW

Other countries, including the United States, have promoted social distancing and isolation in order to slow the spread of the virus. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that people do not congregate in groups larger than 50.

The coronavirus has infected at least 173,000 people, and killed more than 7,281 people, worldwide as of Monday.