Route 66 summer festival in Missouri canceled due to COVID-19 surge

The city of Springfield, Missouri, announced it was canceling a major summer festival as COVID-19 surges in the region.

The city of Springfield, Missouri, announced Monday that it was canceling a major summer festival as COVID-19 surges in the region. The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, which was scheduled for Aug. 13-14 and typically includes live music and a classic car parade, has been called off for the second year in a row due to COVID-19. In 2019, the last year the festival was held, it drew 65,000 attendees over two days, and it was expected to host 75,000 this year, according to the city. "With our region’s low vaccination rate against COVID-19, the resulting surge of infections are overwhelming our hospitals and making our community sick," Cora Scott, director of public information and civic engagement for the city, said in a statement. "We feel it is just not safe to bring tens of thousands of people from all over the world to this community for any reason." Missouri's vaccination rate trails the national average. As of Monday, 46% of residents had received at least one dose, and 40% were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, compared with 56% of all Americans who've gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated.