As if the Zika Virus hasn’t terrorized us enough by frightening sports lovers and NBC employees into avoiding the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next month, now the disease is ruining poor Colombia’s summer concert season.
The country’s inaugural Lollapalooza festival has been cancelled after Rihanna pulled out over fears she might contract the Zika virus. The singer was scheduled to headline the concert in Bogotá this week but after alerting organizers she would not be performing due to the growing number of Zika virus cases in the country — Colombia was reported to have the second-most cases of the disease in South America earlier this year — event planners were forced to cancel shows, issuing a statement that there wouldn’t be enough time to find a replacement headliner.
Fans will have their tickets refunded, but this is still sad news, especially when you look at the rest of the festival’s line-up which was to also include Lana Del Rey, Wiz Khalifa, Disclosure, and The Chainsmokers.
Obviously, some fans are pretty angry:
If this is true, she's stupid and so her staff Bogotá is up in the mountains we don't have zika here…. https://t.co/hTnCcsH1eU
— Natalia Prada (@gogonata) July 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/NarePixie/status/748993477992648704
@rihanna cancelled Colombia's Lollapalooza performance to avoid Zika virus. Bogotá is a city located at 2,600 meters above sea level duh!
— philitzer (@philitzer) July 1, 2016
All Twitter ranting aside, the Zika threat has been growing steadily this year. A handful of Olympic athletes aren’t competing in Brazil next month because of fears of contracting the disease — which can cause birth defects and possible brain disorders — and ticket sales for the Games have plummeted ever since the virus was first reported. We can’t blame Rihanna for thinking of her safety (and likely the safety of her fans as well) by cancelling her appearance at the festival. Really this news just proves what we’ve known all along: mosquitoes are the worst.
