Green Day Postpones Dates in Asia Due to Coronavirus Scare
The coronavirus is an ongoing health scare that is sweeping the world. As a result, many artists are cancelling or postponing overseas tour dates. Green Day are joining that list of artists by postponing dates they have scheduled in Asia.
Green Day made the announcement of their postponed tour dates late Thursday night releasing the update in their Twitter feed.
“We have unfortunately made the difficult decision to postpone our upcoming shows in Asia due to the health and travel concerns with coronavirus,” the statement read. “We know it sucks and we were looking forward to seeing you all but hold on to your tickets. We’ll be announcing new dates very soon.”
The dates Green Day postponed were set to take place in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Taipei, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan through March. They were supporting their Hella Mega Tour which featured openers Fall Out Boy and Weezer. There is no word on when the dates in Asia will be rescheduled.
There are dates for the tour on their web site which is slated to resume on May 24 in Russia. The tour will then sweep through Europe before landing in the United States and Australia and New Zealand.
Green Day are not the only band who decided to postpone or cancel dates in Asia. BTS recently cancelled several shows they had scheduled in their hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Stormzy also postponed five shows scheduled for the region in March. The Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled their 2020 tour as well.
And while artists in America are experiencing a loss, the coronavirus is having a much larger effect on Asian acts. Major K-pop acts like Taeyeon, Winner, NCT, GOT7 and Andy Lau have all had to cancel shows due to the health scare.
U.S. organizers of the Korean Times Music Festival that is held in Southern California every year also announced earlier in the week they would be postponing their April event.
The coronavirus first appeared in China in December. Currently, 84,144 cases have been reported with 2,876 resulting in death while 36,873 recovered. Of those cases, 78,832 were discovered in China. S. Korea runs a distant second. Although there are far fewer cases in other parts of the country, there is evidence of the disease on almost every continent.
Symptoms of the Corona virus include a fever, followed by a cough and shortness of breath that could require hospitalization. 80% of cases are mild and patients can recover at home. 13.8% of cases are considered severe and could develop to become pneumonia. 4.7% are critical and possibly deadly.
It is unfortunate that this potentially deadly sickness has affected our music scene. Scientists are currently working on determining the source which, they feel will bring them closer to finding a cure. Hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later making the disease more containable and getting more bands back out on the road.
