opes that the West End can come back to life from June 21 have been given a huge boost as the Culture Secretary revealed the results of the biggest tests of crowd events yet.
In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, Oliver Dowden disclosed that just 15 cases of Covid-19 emerged among 58,000 people who took part in events ranging from the Brit Awards to the FA Cup final.
- Just four cases of Covid occurred across the entire 17 days of the World Snooker Championships, staged indoors at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
- Zero cases emerged from the Brits, even though the audience could mingle at tables and in boxes without masks.
- There were only two cases among 5,900 pop-lovers at an outdoor music festival at Sefton Park, Liverpool, and none at all at the reduced-capacity football at Wembley Stadium, indicating that summer festivals, sporting events and entertainments held outdoors are very safe.
- Nine cases were found among 6,000 revellers who packed into a nightclub in Liverpool over two days without masks. The relatively higher incidence confirmed that clubbing is the toughest part of the night economy to bring back safely but is not seen as so high as to rule out the reopening of venues.
A delighted Mr Dowden said: “Overall it has been a real success.” He said he was “hopeful” that June 21 will see the full-scale reopening of theatres and other West End venues.
He announced that the Government is commissioning a second round of trials involving even bigger crowds at major venues to deepen ministers’ understanding of how to manage events and audiences safely, including the possible role that so-called Covid Passports could play.
The Standard understands that European Championship matches at Wembley stadium are likely to be included in the study, meaning fans could enjoy games amid the roar of a full-sized crowd.
“I hope by June 21 we will be lighting up the West End again, having full stadiums and bringing light and Technicolor back into our national life again,” said the Cabinet minister.
Results from the first round of trials will play a crucial role in helping determine Boris Johnson’s decision on whether to go ahead with scrapping social distancing in stage four of the roadmap out of lockdown, due to come into effect on June 21.
Mr Dowden said his “laser like focus” was on the hope of ending restrictions, enabling capacity crowds again at theatres, cinemas, clubs, museums and music venues without social distancing or masks.
“That is what success looks like for me,” he said. “I think we’re making good progress along the line to bring the West End back to life again.”
He declined to predict what the Prime Minister will decide, but hoped that even nightclubs could reopen with “mitigation” such as extra ventilation or testing.
“There’s two questions. Can we go ahead with stage four on June 21? I hope I hope we can. We’re definitely not ruling it out. Then the second question is the ‘how’ and this is about the sort of mitigations that you might have to have in place.”
Could he envisage theatres being allowed to sell every seat instead of keeping some empty. Mr Dowden admitted he was tempted to say he was “confident” but settled on the more cautious phrase, “I’m very hopeful.”
Britain is the only country to have staged such detailed research into events. The research used a variety of crowd sizes, some with masks and social distancing, some without. Mr Dowden said the data gave “very positive signals”.
The second wave of trials will help prepare the country for the possibility of another Covid surge in the future, possibly involving a new mutation. “Even after June 21 we need to make sure we’re fully equipped for potential challenges,” said Mr Dowden. “Irreversibility is a really important part of this.”
BBC will be given chance to prove it can provide its own oversight
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Dowden revealed that the BBC will be given a chance to prove it can provide its own “oversight and challenge” in the wake of the Martin Bashir scandal, but warned that an independent body may be given the task.
“I think first of all the BBC has to look to itself to see whether they can deliver that through their own reforms, and then we will essentially judge through the mid-term review to see if that is necessary,” he said.
Mr Dowden defended his comment that the BBC should “project British values” in future, which some interpreted as a hint that the Government might impose such values.
He said he was committed to editorial independence and that his point was about projecting values on the world stage. “There is a real space globally to have that really trusted broadcaster. Those are British values: values of trust, impartiality, and in a world where democratic values are increasingly under threat I certainly think the BBC should be out there, standing for those values.”
The minister said he did not consider himself “woke” and said: “I want to make sure that a granny in Middlesbrough or a middle aged man in Wolverhampton feels as represented as an Islington millennial”.
Urging cultural institutions not to get swept up by campaigns like the movement to remove statues, he said: “What I’m saying is, let’s make sure we have a longer term perspective on all of this. You just have to look at what happened to our urban landscape after the Second World War. More damage was done by the misplaced idealism of socialist planners [than] by the Luftwaffe bombers.”
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