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Michael Eavis: 'Glastonbury 2021 could use mass testing'

Michael Eavis: 'Glastonbury 2021 could use mass testing'
© Reuters
Michael Eavis suggests that multiple mass testing of all 200,000 festival-goers could enable Glastonbury to go ahead in 2021.

Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis has speculated that the festival could go ahead next summer by employing mass coronavirus testing.

This year's event - planned to be a 50th anniversary celebration - was cancelled due to the pandemic and as it stands, Eavis is still ploughing ahead with plans to hold a rearranged festival next summer.

A vaccine for the virus is not expected to be approved for general use in the UK until early 2021, however, and with mass distribution of that vaccine across the population expected to take at least six months, Eavis is hoping that an ambitious plan of testing all 200,000 festival-goers multiple times could enable Glasto to proceed.

"The testing is going so well now, there could be massive testing arrangements," he said in an interview at the Wells Literary Festival.

"Do we want to test 200,000 people, three times – when they leave their home; when they're halfway here; and when they get to the gate – so that we're clear of COVID?"

More than 1.1 million people worldwide have now died of coronavirus, while a second wave of the infection is spreading rapidly across Europe.

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