[Choir] bad news

[Bronwyn Fryer]

From Vanity Fair. love to all. Someday we will sing together in our church again…..but it will be a while. 

love
Bronwyn
Singing looks like a big danger.

Most people have come across the terrifying Los Angeles Times article <https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak> by Richard Read describing how 45 members of a 121-person choir in Washington State got infected (and two died) after gathering for a night of practice. But that story isn’t unique. Enclosed spaces in which people raise their voices together have time and again proven to be the sites of major outbreaks. In Daegu, South Korea, members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus crowd together <https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-a-south-korean-church-was-the-perfect-petri-dish-for-coronavirus-11583082110>, embrace, and shout “Amen” throughout an hours-long service, and one person is believed to have infected hundreds of others that way. A funeral in Albany, Georgia, at which people embraced and “belted out hymns,” according <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/us/coronavirus-funeral-albany-georgia.html> to Ellen Barry in the New York Times, infected dozens. Hundreds of cases are believed to have emanated <https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/europe/austria-ski-resort-ischgl-coronavirus-intl/index.html> from an après-ski restaurant and bar in Ischgl, a resort town in Austria. You can see a video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4j6W8WDDw> of the carousing at the alleged establishment, where there’s nothing but close quarters boisterousness and singing.

Why is singing significant? One 2019 study <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38808-z> published in Nature’s Scientific Reports found that “the rate of particle emission during normal human speech is positively correlated with the loudness (amplitude) of vocalization.” It also found that “a small fraction of individuals behaves as ‘speech superemitters,’ consistently releasing an order of magnitude more particles than their peers.” In its review of the literature, it also offered wild (at least to this author) facts like this: Saying “aah” for 30 seconds releases more micron-scale particles than does 30 seconds of coughing. That may be why weddings and funerals and birthday parties and church services of all sorts have been central to outbreak anecdotes. As for drinking establishments, a quiet pub with a bit of space between customers probably isn’t going to see a lot of people infected at once. But a rowdy spot in the Alps? A lot of infections. Shared vocalization is a magical thing in normal times, but these are coronavirus times. Even a cough-along is looking safer than a sing-along.
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