Fauci: it won't be safe to go to the theater until the back end of 2021

[Leo Enticknap]

Sorry about the politically polarized source, but I can't find this reported anywhere else (except an even more politically polarized source):

Fauci: Americans can go to theaters once a vaccine has existed for 'almost a year' ... 'I would think by the time we get to the end of 2021,' he said

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes Americans will be able to sit in theaters again once a coronavirus vaccine has existed "for almost a year."

Fauci was responding to a question from actress Jennifer Garner about when Americans can expect to return to theaters during an interview posted to Garner's Instagram page on Thursday.

"I think it’s going to be a combination of a vaccine that has been around for almost a year and good public-health measures," Fauci said. "I would think by the time we get to the end of 2021 — maybe even the middle of 2021."

He added that if the U.S. gets a "knock-out vaccine that's 85 [to] 90% effective," and "just about everybody gets vaccinated," society will have "a degree of immunity" that allows the general public to "walk into a theater without masks and feel like it's comfortable" that they will not be at risk of catching COVID-19.

Fauci also clarified some theories about catching COVID-19 based on earlier studies, saying people don't need to worry too much about contracting the virus through inanimate objects such as groceries and packages, and people do not need to wear masks outside when they are very far away from others.

Movie theaters, Broadway and other in-person entertainment venues have taken a significant hit to business as a result of coronavirus lockdown restrictions that have just begun to ease across the country.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said drugmakers involved in coronavirus vaccine trials should be ready to start distributing vaccines by Nov. 1.

Three vaccines set for distribution in the U.S. from Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca are currently in the final stages of clinical trials, and President Trump suggested on Sept. 3 that a vaccine could be available as soon as October.

For all of our sakes, I hope that he's got this one wrong.

[Steve Guttag]

Fauci needs to back up his claims with evidence. If he is backing scientific method, at some point he needs to prove/disprove his hypothesis. Statistical evidence from around the globe is showing that cinemas have not been a cause for COVID-19 spread as there have been zero contact tracing that has been linked to cinemas from those countries that have had cinemas opened for months. Even in the US there have been zero evidence that any cinema has been the source of COVID-19 transfers.

NATO should be asking Dr. Fauci to please provide his study/evidence to support his hypothesis. It could be that the relatively unique nature of cinemas (everyone facing one direction, the ability to spread out better than on say airplanes) make cinemas notably BETTER places, as far as indoor businesses go. We should be reclassified as a safer business unless they can provide scientific evidence. Statistically, at this time, they are wrong.

https://youtu.be/BGIQR9SMtAk

[Martin McCaffery]

"walk into a theater without masks and feel like it's comfortable"

He's not saying we can't go to the movies for a year, but that we'll still need to wear masks and, I assume, social distance.

Not ideal, but adaptable. I won't be opening until things are under control in Montgomery. We'll see if there is a post Labor Day spike.

[Steve Guttag]

Martin, my complaint with Dr. Facui's statements is that he seems to single out cinemas as particularly unsafe. The mask/no mask thing shouldn't be any different than any other indoor business. While in the lobby, we are exactly like other indoor businesses. While in the theatres, we are, seemingly, safer, as per statistical evidence. Nowhere does he mention that. The take away from his statements are that cinemas are, somehow, more risky that other indoor businesses.

I wonder if people will receive vaccination certificates to carry around. I could see businesses, until we have a herd immunity of vaccinated people, requiring proof of vaccination to enter a business as a means to remove the mask requirement and distancing. However, once you remove those safeguards, anyone that is not vaccinated is at risk (or significantly higher risk) so, for their safety, should not be permitted in the business.

[Mike Blakesley]

The guy probably hasn't been in a movie theater in 25 or 30 years. He's picturing a crowded lobby or auditorium packed with people as seen in promotional pictures.

[Leo Enticknap]

I could see businesses, until we have a herd immunity of vaccinated people, requiring proof of vaccination to enter a business as a means to remove the mask requirement and distancing.

That would be both a political and legal ass-coverage minefield. When one or more vaccines (several, developed independently, are currently in third stage trials, not to mention the ones that China and Russia appear to be rolling out already, without any of this wussy faffing around with clinical trials!) do become widely available, the big questions for each one will be:

1 - Does it work (defined as providing immunity both from developing C19 symptoms and being a vector)?
2 - Does it have any undesirable side effects?

I suspect that the reason Fauci talked of a vaccine "that has been around for almost a year" is that he suspects that it will take that long for the population as a whole to have real confidence in claims of yes to 1 and no to 2. The Andrew Wakefield/anti-vaxxer brigade will be watching like a hawk for any no to 1/yes to 2 evidence - especially the latter - and if they think they've found any, screaming about it from the digital rooftops. For a business to make proof of vaccination a condition of doing business with it before that confidence is established would at the very least be to risk some extremely negative PR, should any questions about the vaccine(s) later gain traction.

None of which is any reason why Fauci should be singling out theaters for scaremongering. Though to be fair to him, his remarks were in the context of an answer to a question from a movie actress, specifically about theaters.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo, it would be with respect to masking versus vaccination. If people want to to be maskless around others, the "others" would need some form of immunity. There is going to be new case law surrounding this for years to come. I could see someone equally stating that since they have been vaccinated that should not be required to wear a mask as the reason for it is eliminated (since they are immune, they don't have the virus to spread to others.

As for confidence...that will vary greatly amongst the population. There are some side effects that it will take a year or more to know about, particularly with pregnant women (and that will be true for any pregnant women that happen to catch COVID-19 too).

Dr. Fauci still needs to back up his claims with facts/data and stop with the hypothesis/speculation as we are now getting statistical data based on real world conditions. NATO is just such an organization that should be hammering that to him until he notes cinemas's case record. Part of consumer confidence is NOT hearing the government proclaim that you'll die (high risk) going to cinemas.

[Ed Gordon]

The entire Instagram interview is available to watch at https://www.instagram.com/p/CE7tWzinTI8/ You don't need an Instagram account to view the video.

There is an long pause while Jenifer Garner waits for Dr Fauci to join the meeting online.

Even though it may be possible to go to large indoor gatherings wearing a mask in the near future, that does not mean people will feel comfortable doing it anytime soon. If the 1918 pandemic is any guide as to what to expect, it may take up to two years for large indoor venue attendance to return to "normal".

[Frank Cox]

People aren't phoning to ask what's playing any more.

Even though I have a website and a dedicated telephone line with an answering machine to tell people what's playing, I used to get one or two phone calls on most days from someone asking "What's playing" or "What time does the show start tonight?"

(Incidentally, I've always got kind of a kick out of the people who phone and ask, "What time does the 8 o'clock show start?" Me: "It starts at 8 o'clock.")

However, there are now weeks that go by when not one person phones to ask what's playing. Thinking about it now, I'll estimate that I get one phone call in about three weeks. Which is a huge decrease in people wanting information. And my email mailing list is about 5% smaller than it was, too. I never really know why people un-subscribe, but there's been about 30 people who have done so over the past six months and only about three new sign-ups. That's also different since the mailing list used to constantly grow since I started it.

[Buck Wilson]

People aren't phoning to ask what's playing any more.

I just happened to think about the phone last night and realized as well, that I haven't taken a single call since we've reopened. I don't think I've even heard it ring at all either.

[Martin McCaffery]

We still get plenty of robocalls!

[Scott Norwood]

However, there are now weeks that go by when not one person phones to ask what's playing. Thinking about it now, I'll estimate that I get one phone call in about three weeks. Which is a huge decrease in people wanting information. And my email mailing list is about 5% smaller than it was, too. I never really know why people un-subscribe, but there's been about 30 people who have done so over the past six months and only about three new sign-ups. That's also different since the mailing list used to constantly grow since I started it.

That could just be natural churn, as people move on and abandon old email addresses. Assuming that your mailing-list software automatically unsubscribes addresses that generate bounces, of course. The real difference is probably that you don't have any new subscribers, since people aren't going out much right now, and there aren't many movies to see if they do.

[Mike Blakesley]

We're still getting a few phone calls, although we weren't getting all that many pre-pandemic anyway -- people look at our website or Facebook. What I *AM* getting is people saying "When are you going to play a good movie?" They apparently have decided (without seeing it) that "Tenet" is not a good movie.

What bugs me about some of these inquirers is, they bugged me all summer to play some Westerns and people seemed really excited to see "The Outlaw Josey Wales," so when we played that a couple of weeks ago, we had one good night and the rest of the week it was single digits. And then since then, people saying "We really wanted to come and see Josey Wales but we were just blah blah blah..."

We really need a must-see blockbuster (that isn't going to come out on video in 17 days). I don't see one of those on the horizon until next spring.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think Dr Fauci could have phrased his response better so it didn't seem like he was singling out commercial movie theaters. Cinemas do present their own potential hazards for the spread of SARS-CoV-2. But so do many other indoor businesses and operations -many of which have been allowed to re-open in most parts of the nation. Restaurants, bars/nightclubs and churches are back in business in many places, despite the very obvious risk.

Any indoor location that allows dozens of strangers to gather in close proximity and breathe the same recirculated air for 30 minutes to 2 hours or longer is going to pose a substantial risk, and a high one at that without various safety measures (masks, social distancing, reducing seating, etc).

The evidence is increasingly clear that it takes a certain amount of viral load for someone to get infected with SARS-CoV-2. Your chances of contracting it by passing an infected person walking the opposite direction on a sidewalk are very low. But if you're eating dinner in a restaurant and that infected person is at the next table your odds of getting infected increase radically. The luck of the draw is partially determined by which direction the restaurant's HVAC system is pushing the air.

Despite the risk, dine-in service in many restaurants across the country has resumed. The churches in my town were allowed to re-open many weeks ago. But they're each taking their own approaches for in-person or remote services, similar to schools.

Currently I would only see movie theaters as a high risk location if lots of people were clamoring to go to the show and there wasn't any restrictions on seating capacity. Right now it seems like audiences are staying away in droves. It's partly out of fear. But it's also partly because movies like The New Mutants and Tenet just aren't appealing to audiences. Both might have been duds without this pandemic.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's frustrating there is still little evidence about how exactly the virus spreads. While there has been some research about how it survives on different surfaces in several conditions and how UV light in daylight affects it on those surfaces, there is little to no published research of how it behaves in rooms, everything there is right now is based on theories, not on actual research.

What we seem to know from empirical evidence is that cold environments and badly ventilated environments are rather bad, but for all we know, a single cycle through your average HVAC system might already render it harmless. With the current capacity restrictions in cinemas, the risks seem to be minimal, as I still don't know about any spreading event that originated in a cinema up until now.

Still, the unknown factors keep people away from cinemas all over the globe. I know a few friends and family that went out to see Tenet, but that's about it and for most it was the first movie since the initial lockdowns started back in March. Not everybody liked the experience either, because they were required to wear a mask for extended periods of time.