Heading into Labor Day weekend, Power & Light concert has smaller crowd, few masks
Kansas City’s Power & Light District kicked of Labor Day weekend by hosting Hot Country Nights on Thursday, three weeks after images of the event prompted frustration and concern from residents and public health officials about potential spread of the coronavirus.
The crowd around 8:30 p.m. Thursday appeared to be sparser than what was shown in video posted to Twitter last month. People sat or gathered in groups throughout the outdoor KC Live space and seemed to avoid mingling with others.
However, like last month, only a handful of people wore masks despite signs directing attendees to wear masks at all times unless they were seated or actively eating or drinking.
Smithville native Casi Joy performed at the free concert.
Leading up to the holiday weekend, officials are pleading with residents to follow public health guidelines, asking everyone to wear masks and cautioning against big events and crowds.
The Kansas City metro area averages more than 300 new cases of the virus each day, according to data kept by The Star, but the seven-day rolling average has been on the decline.
On Friday, the area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas gained 264 cases for a total of 31,965 to date. The seven-day rolling average for new cases was 317. One week ago, it was 378 and two weeks ago it was 331. On August 4, it was 438.
In an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said the country needs to reduce the rate of new COVID-19 cases drastically. Currently, he said, the U.S. averages about 40,000 new cases per day, an “unacceptably high baseline.”
Throughout the summer, Fauci said, holiday weekends have led to surges in new coronavirus cases. He urged Americans to take precautions with mask wearing and social distancing.
“We know from prior experience that when you get into holiday weekends ... there’s a tendency for people to be careless somewhat with regards to the public health measures that we keep recommending over and over again,” Fauci said. “We really still need to get our arms around (the pandemic) and to suppress those types of surges we’ve seen.”
Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, voiced the same sentiment in a media conference call Tuesday, according to CNBC.
“If we get through this weekend, as Dr. Fauci said yesterday on the governors’ call, and we do what we’re supposed to do, we’re going to be in really good shape going into the fall,” Giroir said.
In the Kansas City area, chief medical officers at hospitals held a live video conference Wednesday to discuss the pandemic response locally.
During the meeting, they referenced the comments of Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator. Birx, they said, visited the area and warned health officials that there was the potential for Kansas City to become the next Florida and for hospitals to be overwhelmed.
Steven Stites, chief medical officer for the University of Kansas Health System, said Birx commented that Kansas City residents were not wearing masks and were gathering in larger groups than they should.
“We have the potential to become something we really don’t want to become,” said David Wild, vice president for performance improvement at the University of Kansas Health System. “As growth heats up or becomes exponential, it becomes uncontrolled.”
The medical directors called for a higher level of community responsibility in order to keep businesses and schools open in the Kansas City area.
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 9:56 PM.
