A mom posted on Twitter looking to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Los Angeles. The woman says her daughter has to miss a Denver show due to a “dangerous bacterial infection in her blood, pneumonia and bilateral pleural effusion.”
Many replied to the mom’s tweets saying that the shows wouldn’t be safe for her daughter.
In a tweet posted last week, Sabrina Barstow shared that her daughter is in a Washington, D.C., hospital “fighting a dangerous bacterial infection in her blood,” in addition to pneumonia and bilateral pleural effusion (increased fluid in her lungs).
Barstow said that her daughter will have to miss the Eras Tour show for which they have tickets in Denver and asked Twitter users if anyone was selling tickets to Swift’s Los Angeles shows.
“We are going to miss the Denver show because we can’t leave DC until 7/15 when her antibiotics are completed,” Barstow tweeted.
While Barstow received replies wishing her daughter good health and good luck in finding tickets, many reminded her of the health risks inherent in attending an event with tens of thousands of people. (Over 71,000 people attended Swift’s Nashville shows per night in May.)
“It might not be the best idea to attend a concert—a superspreader event in an ongoing pandemic of an airborne virus—while your daughter is fighting a dangerous bacterial infection and pneumonia in the hospital,” @reesiepeacie tweeted. “Please at least wear good quality masks if you go.”
“Her concerts are superspreaders, masked or unmasked we are still in an ongoing pandemic and if ur child is fighting something so serious please don’t go to protect them,” @hutchleah tweeted. “COVID is still rampant and it’s so serious! Ppl are going to Eras WITH COVID!”
(One Swiftie tweeted that they attended the show after testing positive for COVID.)
“Don‘t take her to a super spreader event,” @autistictic tweeted. “Esp. not in a very weakened state, where her immune system doesn’t stand a chance when (not if) she gets COVID. PLEASE. DON‘T.”
Other Twitter users even shared that they contracted COVID-19 at the Eras Tour.
There has been discussion about COVID-19 and the Eras Tour on r/TaylorSwift, a subreddit dedicated to the singer. Shortly before the tour began, a fan posted saying that they were disappointed that Swift and her team didn’t ensure any COVID-19 precautions for the tour.
“I can’t help but feel extremely disappointed,” Reddit user FlubbyStarfish wrote. “I care about keeping myself and others safe, but with 70,000+ unregulated people packed in a single stadium, it’s almost guaranteed Covid will be spread (and possibly result in superspreader events across the U.S.)”
And after some of the two first shows in Glendale, Arizona, Redditor Sam_Baird19 posted that “people are already posting positive COVID tests following their concert experience.”
“I have a feeling people are going to the shows knowing they have covid,” one Redditor wrote in response. “But don’t want to not go.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Swift’s management team.
In a statement to the Daily Dot, Barstow said that “any plans I have made have already been cleared by her doctors AND her infectious disease team” and that she would “never do anything to put my any of my children in imminent danger.”
“People are taking something that was meant to be a special surprise for my daughters and using it as a tool to shame me as a mother,” Barstow told the Daily Dot. “An emphatic middle finger to anyone spouting craziness and harassing me on Twitter (and other social media platforms) about a situation you only have a tiny glimpse into.”
