Four months after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized COVID-19 as a pandemic, the entire world is still far from seeing the end of this situation. In an effort to curb the spread of this deadly pneumonia-like illness that originated from Wuhan, China, major cities all around the globe were forced into lockdown. Going to malls, parks, and other recreation centers are strictly prohibited. Unfortunately, due to these lockdown measures, the economy has also started to crumble, showing that COVID-19 is not only a public health issue.
One of the badly-affected industries due to the COVID-19 pandemic is theater arts. Many theater houses were closed down for the best interest of the audience and the people behind the theater play productions. Now that business establishments are slowly opening their doors to save what is left of our economy, there are now calls to allow the reopening of theater houses. Fans have long been waiting to watch their favorite theater acts live on stage, if not for the lockdown. However, is it now safe to allow live audience into a theater performance?
Public Welfare Must Be The Priority At This Point
We all know how bad it is to miss the openings of the huge upcoming theater plays this year. Unfortunately, we did not have any idea back then that a pandemic of this proportion would strike us. It is necessary to close the theater houses at the moment as the COVID-19 cases continue to rise. In the United States, the number of cases have already breached the 2-million mark, with more than half a million people in the country who succumbed to this disease. You can check https://www.jkrenhold.no/ for more stats.
Knowing that theater houses are closed spaces, letting only one person infected with COVID-19 to enter a hall filled with theater fans and performers would result to an exponential increase of infection in just a single day. With claims that the novel coronavirus is actually airborne, then opening the theater houses might actually be a wrong idea. Even if we apply social distancing inside the theater house, the poor ventilation would only allow the virus to go around the closed area, putting everyone at risk of contacting the disease.
For now, it is strongly advised for us to stay at home until the pandemic situation lets up. Luckily for us theater fans, some productions have allowed the recordings of famous theater plays such as Hamilton to be streamed online, so that we can all enjoy the wonder of theater in the comfort of our home. In this case, there will be no strict theater etiquette that we should follow.
