#REBUILDOURSCENE
We don’t yet know the full ramifications of the novel coronavirus. Still, some crucial facts have become clear in the first months of this extraordinary global event. And what they add up to is not an invocation to stay calm, as so many politicians around the globe are incessantly suggesting; it is, on the contrary, the case for changing our behavior in radical ways—right now.
So far only one measure has been effective against the coronavirus: extreme social distancing. The virus could well spread with frightening rapidity once again, overburdening our health-care system and claiming lives (as we’ve unfortunately already witnessed in these past few months), if we don’t extend social distancing until a scientifically proven vaccine, cure or else, has not been discovered.
Yet, many arts & culture organisations such as music venues, museums, theatres, and others are rescheduling events, to later dates, based upon presumptions rather than facts, keeping the money of many people who are now suffering a dramatic period of uncertainties with many jobs under threat, incredibly low incomes and multiple bills to pay. Given that most forms of social distancing will be useless if sick people cannot get treated—or afford to stay away from work when they are sick—social gathering events should be canceled for the time being, until an established international protocol has not been established, and refund people IN FULL for their tickets previously purchased. This will be probably a once in a lifetime occasion where the arts & culture sector, as a whole, can be reformed and made more equal, diverse, open, and less greedy, consumeristic, and capitalistic, which never was right from the start.