Clusters of COVID-19 transmission from Washington state to Georgia have been traced to choir sessions, with singers who lead worship or entertain communities uniquely vulnerable to the deadly respiratory disease.
Scientists say choir members forcefully emit droplets that other singers breathe in deeply before their cues, creating a perfect transmission chain.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, ripped through a choir in Mount Vernon, Washington, after an early March practice. Within three weeks, 45 members had been infected and two died, even though members had avoided direct contact and no one seemed ill during rehearsal, according to local reports.
One of Georgia’s earliest clusters of COVID-19 has been traced to a lengthy March 1 service for a retiring music minister in Cartersville. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that at least four people who attended the event or were close to someone who did later died.
“It’s been broadcast to us specifically, ’Please, don’t have any more choirs,’” Buford Church of God Pastor Joey Grizzle told The Washington Times.
His church northeast of Atlanta has been taking precautions for weeks. Its large choir started work on an Easter performance in January, but when the big day came, it couldn’t join conductor Bob Tabor on stage.
Instead, about 40 of the singers formed a “virtual choir,” melding their voice parts from home in the type of “Hollywood Squares” video that’s become the best way to connect in the age of the coronavirus.
On regular Sundays, the church uses the length of the stage to spread out eight or so musicians for its live-streamed and drive-in services. The church recently added a walk-in service, though with a limited capacity of 175 people in a sanctuary that can hold more than 800.
How to worship safety is one piece in a broader puzzle for nations creeping back to normal, while maintaining “social distance” in restaurants, sports arenas and trains, planes and buses.
German officials said its popular soccer league, the Bundesliga, will resume later this month, as places in Europe explore ways to reopen.
American sports leagues remain suspended as the U.S. contends with a stubborn caseload of tens of thousands of new cases per day. The nationwide case count has exceeded 1.2 million, including more than 72,800 deaths.
President Trump on Wednesday said his coronavirus task force will continue “indefinitely,” one day after Vice President Mike Pence signaled it could wind down by the end of the month.
Mr. Trump touted the task force’s work on helping secure needed supplies such as ventilators, protective masks and shields. He also said the public supports its work.
“I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down,” he said in an Oval Office event for National Nurses Day.
In a briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany noted the U.S. has tested 7.5 million people for the coronavirus — far more than any other country — but said testing resources should be targeted toward vulnerable populations.
“Let’s dispel a myth about testing right now, if we tested every single American in this country at this moment, we’d have to retest them an hour later and then an hour later after that because at any moment you could theoretically contract this virus,” Ms. McEnany said. “The notion that everyone needs to be tested is just simply nonsensical.”
People who test positive could be isolated, however, reducing the likelihood they will spread it to others in their workplace or community and reducing the arc of transmission. As testing capacity ramps up, the White House says the tests will be deployed strategically, in hard-hit places such as nursing homes and meat-processing plants.
Also Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would like to see schools open, “wherever possible, which I think is in much of the country.”
However, he added, “I would say that until everything is perfect I think that the teachers that are a certain age — perhaps you say over 60, especially if they have a problem with heart or diabetes or any one of a number of things — I think that they should not be teaching school for a while.”
For churches, draft guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on reopening safely advises churches to be cautious or creative about choir singers.
“Avoid or consider suspending use of a choir or musical ensemble during religious services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition. Consider having a soloist or strictly limiting the number of choir members and keep at least six feet between individuals,” says the interim guidance, which has been reported on widely but not finalized and officially released.
Experts say choirs are particularly dangerous because the virus travels through droplets that people emit into the air.
“And if they’re standing close together, then they’ll be producing lots of droplets and they will be landing on each other. And when you’re singing, you tend to breathe deeply,” said William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “So it’s entirely reasonable to think that transmission could be achieved by droplet mechanism within a context like that.”
Dr. Hanage also said because of this, the virus may get very deep into the lungs, so it might not only be a dosage issue, “but also something to do with the amount that gets into a particularly vulnerable part of your body.”
Buford Church of God’s video on Easter allowed choir singers to record their voice parts from wherever they wanted.
Lee Richardson, a tenor, made his car into a studio-for-one. He belted out the song, “Living Hope,” in the upper left of the Zoom-style video but sang in a lower register than Kristin Towe, an alto in the bottom right who cut her video in front of a hanging light fixture and window blinds at home.
Even as states such as Georgia slowly reopen, the live-streamed service remains one of the options on the Sunday menu at Buford Church of God.
Mr. Grizzle, the pastor, said they scheduled the walk-in service at a less popular time — 9 a.m. — while retaining the drive-in service that features sermons from the church roof. Parishioners listen in their cars through an FM transmitter and donate using the “tithe toss” — a bucket-on-a-hook contraception that would usually contain hanging plants but is subbing for the offering plate.
The drive-in service remains the most popular, even though the sanctuary would be the preferred setting in normal times.
“We just added the walk-in service instead of trying to put it right back where it was before,” Mr. Grizzle said.
“It’s not possible right now, the fear is real.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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