Germany’s iconic Oktoberfest festival — the biggest beer festival in the world — is the latest event to be scrapped over concerns about the spread of COVID-19, dealing a huge blow to the country’s tourism and beer industries. But as Markus Söder, the premier of Bavaria, said when announcing the cancellation, the decision wasn’t made lightly, as The Guardian reported.
The 210-year-old festival, which takes place in the Bavarian capital of Munich and draws 6 million visitors a year, was slated to take place from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4, but Söder said that without a vaccine, it was too much of a public health risk.
“Living with coronavirus means living carefully,” he said. “As long as there is no vaccination, we need to be very sensible. We are in mutual agreement that the risk is quite simply too high … compromises will not help.”
Dieter Reiter, the mayor of Munich, called the decision a “bitter pill” but admitted it was the right one. “One can simply not take a decision other than this,” he said. “This is an emotional and economically difficult moment.”
The cancellation of Oktoberfest is bad news for Germany’s beer industry, which is already struggling to cope with the fallout from the pandemic. Adolf Schapfl, president of the Association of German Hop Growers, told Yahoo he would normally have around 20 workers on his hop farm this time of year, but he currently only has four.
“I don’t want to be dramatic, but without a harvest, the risk for us is bankruptcy, and for Germany, a beer shortage next year,” he said.
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