In Germany, volunteers gathered in an arena for an experiment that could help create safety measures for live events around the world.

By Thomas Rogers

“The German pop singer Tim Bendzko was trying his best to energize the crowd at Quarterback Immobilien Arena here on Saturday morning. Flanked by band members and backup singers, he bounced across a stage at the indoor concert and sports venue, thrusting his microphone toward about 1,400 tightly packed audience members, prompting them to sing along.

… They were not typical concertgoers, but volunteers in an elaborate study by a team at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg called Restart 19. Each attendee, outfitted with a digital location tracker and hand disinfectant laced with fluorescent dye, were carefully positioned on seats as part of one of the first experiments by scientists to track the risks of coronavirus infection posed by large, indoor events.”

Source: The New York Times