For the past few years, there has been a decrease in music festivals because of spikes in COVID cases worldwide. 

However, some prominent music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza will be held this spring and summer. 

These large social events aren’t the best idea for anyone during the pandemic. 

We just got hit by another COVID variant called Omicron, which is more contagious than other variants according to Yale Medicine.

There have even been several vaccinated people getting infected with COVID because of how highly contagious the Omicron variant is.

According to The New York Times, Omicron cases are at a peak in the U.S. compared to the past year. 

This means we are more likely to get infected with COVID if we attend these events. 

Although I and many others have been hoping that we could once again feel the thrill of listening to live music, meeting people and making golden memories, the pandemic is still a danger to us. 

Despite people getting vaccinations and wearing masks, the cases keep rising.  

According to the CDC, vaccines are only effective against the original strain of COVID but not entirely against the Omicron variant. All of the information we get about this virus is constantly changing.

Unfortunately, this means we still don’t know if it is safe to attend big social events like music festivals. 

In an interview with CNN, Dr. Fauci said that our best protection against the Omicron variant is a combination of masks and vaccines. 

Music festivals can be safer with restrictions to control who can enter by making sure the people attending are vaccinated and wearing their masks. 

But we have not seen any of them take this huge step. It seems the goal of festivals is gathering attention and getting profit. I get it. Music festivals are fun, and a bucket-list item for many people. 

But to keep as many people as possible safe, we have to wait until the pandemic lessens in intensity to start events like this again.

Although many music festivals have already asked their audiences to be aware of their surroundings and follow all COVID precautions, it is more of a friendly warning and is not highly enforced. 

Even though we’re feeling safer from COVID and have returned to a lot of our daily activities, we should not attend festivals until all people are fully vaccinated and safe.