LA and New York mayors reckon live music won't return to the cities until 2021

The current coronavirus pandemic has brought live music and events to a standstill, and while many events have been cancelled or rescheduled for later this year, both mayors of LA and NYC think that events won't return until 2021.

According to Billboard, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN on Wednesday (15 April), "It's difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon, so I think we should be prepared for that this year."

Garcetti added, "I think we all have never wanted science to work so quickly. But until there's either a vaccine, some sort of pharmaceutical intervention, or herd immunity, the science is the science. And public health officials have made very clear we have miles and miles to walk before we can be back in those environments."

NYC mayor Bill De Blasio told CNN earlier the same day, "I've got to see in my city real steady progress, even to start to think about relaxing some of those social distancing standards even a little bit. I want to get people back to work, of course. I want to get kids back to school. But I think it will take months to go through that whole sequence. And the last thing I want to do is gather 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one place, that's like the exact opposite of social distancing."