(Newser)
– After all, there will be no Vanilla Ice concert in Austin this weekend. “This date has been canceled and will be rescheduled for another time,” said a representative of the rapper on Thursday, reports CNN. The outdoor performance was planned for Friday at Emerald Point Bar & Grill, but Texas is among the states now having an even more difficult time with the coronavirus, with more than 8,000 new cases on Wednesday. “I didn’t know the numbers were so crazy in Austin,” the artist said in a video Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times. The county containing Austin had reported 597 new infections in one day, a jump of nearly 700%.
Just a few hours earlier on Thursday, Vanilla Ice was defending the holiday weekend concert, in a tweet since it was removed. “I take coronavirus seriously. But we cannot live in a bubble,” he had posted. Fans would have had to wear masks, decided on before the governor announced the requirement, and their temperature would have been verified upon arrival at the site, which is located on Lake Travis, just outside the city. Earlier this week, she posted a video of a packed concert on Instagram with a title that begins: “I can’t wait to get back to this.” (The concert was circumventing the state mandate to close bars).
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