Hayley Serpa/Staff Writer
A staple of the Miami festival and rap scene, Rolling Loud would recently announce their first in-person concert in Miami since the novel coronavirus pandemic broke out over a year ago in February of 2020. The three-day hip-hop festival is programmed to run from July 23rd to the 25th with a lineup featuring major rap artists like Young Thug and Travis Scott. However, many feel that it is still far too soon to be holding large events like Rolling Loud at crowded urban centers such as Miami where the propagation of the virus amongst the festival goers continues to remain a likely possibility. This risk is increased as Florida continues to scramble to finish it’s slow vaccination campaign and hundreds enter the state to attend the festival.
As of May 18th, only about 35% of the population of the state of Florida has been fully vaccinated and about 45% of Florida’s population has been administered at least one dose of the vaccine against Covid-19. Compared to the vaccination campaigns of other states like Vermont or Massachusetts, Florida’s has stalled behind despite the high number of high risk senior citizens residing within the borders of the Sunshine State. A recent analysis also ranked Florida forty-first out of fifty states in it’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, citing the slower vaccination rate of the state as the reason for it’s low ranking.
The unpromising numbers of Florida’s current vaccination campaign under Governor Ron DeSantis make it highly possible that by the time of the festival in late July, there will still be a large number of people in Florida unvaccinated and at risk of contracting the possibly fatal virus. This risk is increased exponentially when considering the sheer amount of people who travel to Miami to attend Rolling Loud each year, with more than 255,000 people expected to attend the 2020 festival and an estimated 219,000 at the 2019 festival. While some of these people will undoubtedly be vaccinated, it is quite unlikely that all attendees will be fully vaccinated.
It also remains to be seen what Covid-10 safety measures and precautions will be taken by Rolling Loud management to ensure the safety of those attending their festival. Based on my own experiences attending the past two Rolling Loud festivals in Miami as a self-proclaimed Atlanta rap connoisseur, it is almost impossible to respect social distancing guidelines while in concert. Additionally, according to this article by the Miami Herald, no announcements have been made regarding COVID-19 precautions for the festival held at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
While the festival is still scheduled for a few months away, it seems like it is still far too soon for Florida to undertake and host massively popular events such as Rolling Loud right now. Out of all the states within the U.S., Florida’s state remains precarious and hosting a 200,000+ mass human gathering while still not completely out of a pandemic seems like a risky maneuver that should be thought over again. Unless Rolling Loud can provide detailed information on how they plan to organize a safe and sanitary music festival at Hard Rock, and unless the vaccination rate of Florida increases dramatically by mid-July, it remains far too soon to host such an event.
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