
Coronavirus: Germany puts on crowded concerts to study risks - elorant
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53875370
======
svara
Most commenters here didn't read the article properly and completely
misunderstood what this is about. To be fair, it's not explained super
clearly.

So to clarify: This was not done to study the spread of the virus, but rather
to study the behavior of people at this type of event. Only people who tested
negative were allowed to the event.

This has a lot more detail (but is in German):
[https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/corona-
konzert-r...](https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/corona-konzert-
restart19-in-leipzig-mit-tim-bendzko-noch-kurz-die-welt-
retten-a-5ae630e5-3ea0-4c97-9cf0-158516aca193)

~~~
wenc
My first reaction was: wouldn't people who tested negative -- and knew their
results -- behave differently from people who didn't know what their infection
status was? Wouldn't that skew the study?

But then again, from observing my friends (who are mostly younger), many of
them behave as if they didn't have the virus anyway -- even those who hadn't
been tested. So yes, the results might be a little skewed, but the results
should still be instructive.

~~~
dathinab
There is also always the risc that you contacted it since the last test, so
the period in which you can feel to safely not be infectious is rather short.

~~~
fragmede
That risk is much lower if it takes 15-minute to get the test results, as
opposed to tests that take an unknown amount of days/weeks to get results. The
linked article does not discuss in depth what kind of testing took place, only
that it did.

~~~
dathinab
Yes but not if the short tests work reliably. The best not yet on the market
short tests we have do have a lot sensitivity but high specificity, i.e if
they say you have it you most likely have it but if they say you don't have it
you can't rely on it at all. (As as I know)

This is still somewhat useful as it turns out they still do a reasonable good
job wrt. Sensitivity iff you are highly infectious.

So it might be useful to at least "weed out" the most infectious people before
grant events or e.g. school, which would probably already be a great
improvement I guess.

------
dathinab
Wasn't there a article about "read the paper and then comment" in the too of
hackernews yesterday or so?

It's sad that many didn't learn anything from this and are now discussing how
bad such a study is on basis of assumption which ate easily disproven if you
read the article :(

(It's a study about human behavior, about how certain distance rules might
work and how not, it's also testing the potential thread of smearing based
infections by using desinfec which glows under UV light and by simulating the
airflow in the hall and similar. All pacipiants are tested to not be infected,
all are required to wear FFP2 masks properly all the time, no food is given
out, drinking is only allowed in the emergency, hands are desinfected on entry
and potentially later one, too...., So no this should not lead to any relevant
increased risk of spread. But might lead to potential reopening of concert
halls and similar if it's found to be feasible under some conditions).

------
darkerside
What has happened to us as people that studies like this have become so rare?
We can't understand this virus without taking on some level of risk.

~~~
wittyreference
We developed ethics around clinical research.

One of those principles is that if you’re going to actively expose people to
something - to create a possible harm where there previously wasn’t one - you
have to be honestly uncertain of the potential harm (eg, it’s ethical to give
you a placebo vs experimental drug because I honestly don’t know if the drug
will work).

It’s unethical to -certainly- cause harm.

In part that’s because, social dynamics and power structures being what they
are, those “consenting” will skew towards the uneducated and powerless.

In part, consent isn’t even relevant - in this example, if they ended up
stoking the flames of contagion, they wouldn’t just affect the concert goers
but, by definition, all those exposed to the concert goers.

Amusingly, the above refers more to interventional studies - those with more
than one arm. This doesn’t really have a control arm, or randomized assignment
of people to exposure. It’s effectively an observational study - the sort of
thing you don’t need to intentionally construct, but for the fact that people
seem to not be going to concerts.

So... did they have to construct concerts artificially because not enough were
occurring naturally? Did they have to create a harm that didn’t exist to begin
with? Will it even be insightful? They filtered for the young, which
specifically ensures there’s less of a chain of transmission available.

Considering Germany inspired so much of modern medical ethics work, it’s
ironic to see them conduct such a study. I honestly wouldn’t have expected it.

I’m sure the relevant experts and authorities beat these questions to death,
but even so, I’d be awfully curious to see those deliberations and what
justifications were ultimately considered adequate.

~~~
nicoburns
We're not very consistent with this though. We consider it perfectly
acceptable to put people in harms way as part of the armed forces. Even though
the exact same demographic effects are in play.

~~~
prepend
The armed forces aren’t a randomized trial.

Many people go into harms way because of a necessary duty (firefighters, etc).

The restrictions on medical trials is because of the power imbalance. If I
take a job as a firefighter or soldier that’s different from me living my life
and being enrolled in some study putting me at risk for harm.

~~~
nicoburns
I don't see how volunteering to enroll in a study (and being compensated for
it) is any different to choosing to take a job as a soldier or firefighter.

~~~
jacquesm
Taking a job as a soldier is not at all comparable to taking a job as a fire
fighter.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Both are expected to expose themselves to risk, both get paid. The many
differences seem irrelevant to the topic at hand. What am I missing?

~~~
jacquesm
Soldiers tend to kill people, firefighters tend to save people, the difference
- to me - would seem to be obvious.

~~~
emiliobumachar
That difference still seems to me not relevant to the topic at hand.

------
ivanche
Hm, I expected this to be a real concert, with crowd standing and most people
not wearing masks. To me it seems they tested how the virus spreads on healthy
individuals (i.e. nobody had a virus prior to going there) who hold their
distance while sitting still and wearing masks. Under those constraints, I'd
expect around 0 new cases.

Edit: much clearer now, thanks to everybody who replied!

~~~
pizza234
I think this is a very useful research. Considering the catastrophic effect of
the pandemic on performing arts, knowing that concerts organized with due
precautions are reasonably safe, it could directly lead to a very significant
restart.

This is indeed (based on the article), the target of the research:

    
    
      to investigate the conditions under which such events can be
      carried out despite the pandemic

------
tamaharbor
Note: Contrary to what you may have heard, if you catch the virus, there is a
high likelihood that you will not die.

------
plesiv
Chaos engineering IRL.

------
kenjackson
I assume people had to quarantine for two weeks after the concert?

~~~
tinus_hn
Why? Because they kept their distance and wore masks while around people
tested not to be infected?

~~~
wittyreference
PCR has a 30% false negative rate. You make it sound like they entered a clean
room. They did not.

~~~
hdkrgr
This makes it sound more dramatic than it is.

Let's assume the "real" share of infectious people in the population is
10/100k (That's twice as much as the most recent reported 7-day incidence
(5.1/100k) of new infections for Leipzig, the area where the study was
performed.)

Further let's assume a PCR Test has a 30% FNR, and a 10% FPR (numbers
completely made up, I don't have a source).

Then out of 1500 People who have tested negative, we'd expect 0.05 to have the
virus.

~~~
jariel
Probably more like 14-20 day window and much greater than 2x incidence as
loads of people show little or no symptoms.

Once the expected value starts to creep over 1, then that's enough to infect
quite a lot of people. It's not too much past that to expect that one of the
infected has 'underlying condition' and risking death.

In British Coloumbia there's been a big outbreak due to a single gathering in
the interior, notably (shamefully) attended by Medics and Doctors.

It's a little risky.

It's just not the time to have major gatherings, but at least this one is in
the service of the science of 'stopping it' \- which is better than most
places are doing.

