Choir practice turns fatal. Airborne coronavirus strongly suspected
- Thread starter PabloS
- Start date
you have 66 morons in a building together for 2 and 1/2 hrs
how'd they get in? didn't touch the door?
no one used the washroom in 2 and 1/2 hrs?
didn't touch anything in the place anyone else did?
there were mandarins put out to eat? that sounds smart
at one point they were gathered around a couple of pianos in smaller groups
they were in an area where it was know there were cases, Washington State, one of the first areas in the US to be hit
if this was airborne, like they are suggesting, shouldn't the spread everywhere be 10X what it is?
since it's so contagious, 3X that of the flu?
cause no one is in the grocery stores for the last 10 days
or the 2 months before that, everywhere else?
no one was on a plane coming back to Canada, 1,000,000 in a week came back
airports weren't virtually closed till the end of March almost
36 dead from the Flu in Alberta this season
3 dead from this
70 in Canada, last I heard this morning
perspective, world wide, it's still no where near 100,000
I would think if it was "airborne" which there are no real studies showing that conclusively yet
the cases of infected, which is clearly not accurate due to lack of testing, would be much larger, widespread than they already are thinking it is
how'd they get in? didn't touch the door?
no one used the washroom in 2 and 1/2 hrs?
didn't touch anything in the place anyone else did?
there were mandarins put out to eat? that sounds smart
at one point they were gathered around a couple of pianos in smaller groups
they were in an area where it was know there were cases, Washington State, one of the first areas in the US to be hit
if this was airborne, like they are suggesting, shouldn't the spread everywhere be 10X what it is?
since it's so contagious, 3X that of the flu?
cause no one is in the grocery stores for the last 10 days
or the 2 months before that, everywhere else?
no one was on a plane coming back to Canada, 1,000,000 in a week came back
airports weren't virtually closed till the end of March almost
36 dead from the Flu in Alberta this season
3 dead from this
70 in Canada, last I heard this morning
perspective, world wide, it's still no where near 100,000
I would think if it was "airborne" which there are no real studies showing that conclusively yet
the cases of infected, which is clearly not accurate due to lack of testing, would be much larger, widespread than they already are thinking it is
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak
I googled it and this is view-able
most papers, online sites are giving free access to covid pieces
I googled it and this is view-able
most papers, online sites are giving free access to covid pieces
It could be your browser, if you have strong privacy settings on or using some sort of privacy browser you'll get that message. I used a privacy browser and couldn't see the article but when I use a less secure/private browser and google "choir la times" it works fine. Might also be because you're trying to access the article via a link rather than from Google search results.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal.
The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about an hour’s drive to the south.
But Skagit County hadn’t reported any cases, schools and businesses remained open, and prohibitions on large gatherings had yet to be announced.
On March 6, Adam Burdick, the choir’s conductor, informed the 121 members in an email that amid the “stress and strain of concerns about the virus,” practice would proceed as scheduled at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.
“I’m planning on being there this Tuesday March 10, and hoping many of you will be, too,” he wrote.
la-na-coronavirus-choir-outbreak-09.jpg
The Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, Wash.(Karen Ducey / For The Times)
Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.
“It seemed like a normal rehearsal, except that choirs are huggy places,” Burdick recalled. “We were making music and trying to keep a certain distance between each other.”
After 2½ hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.
Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.
The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.
“That’s all we can think of right now,” said Polly Dubbel, a county communicable disease and environmental health manager.
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.
512706-la-sp-dodgers-opening-day-plaschke19-MAM.jpg
CALIFORNIA
A visual look at the coronavirus pandemic
March 27, 2020
Everybody came with their own sheet music and avoided direct physical contact. Some members helped set up or remove folding chairs. A few helped themselves to mandarins that had been put out on a table in back.
Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with a growing body of evidence that the virus can be transmitted through aerosols — particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.
The World Health Organization has downplayed the possibility of transmission in aerosols, stressing that the virus is spread through much larger “respiratory droplets,” which are emitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes and quickly fall to a surface.
But a study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when the virus was suspended in a mist under laboratory conditions it remained “viable and infectious” for three hours — though researchers have said that time period would probably be no more than a half-hour in real-world conditions.
One of the authors of that study, Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a UCLA infectious disease researcher, said it’s possible that the forceful breathing action of singing dispersed viral particles in the church room that were widely inhaled.
“One could imagine that really trying to project your voice would also project more droplets and aerosols,” he said.
With three-quarters of the choir members testing positive for the virus or showing symptoms of infection, the outbreak would be considered a “super-spreading event,” he said.
Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech and an expert on airborne transmission of viruses, said some people happen to be especially good at exhaling fine material, producing 1,000 times more than others.
Marr said that the choir outbreak should be seen as a powerful warning to the public.
“This may help people realize that, hey, we really need to be careful,” she said.
***
The Skagit Valley Chorale draws its members from across northwest Washington and often sells out its winter and spring concerts at the 650-seat McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon.
Amateur singers interested in choral music tend to be older, but the group includes some young adults. Last year, Burdick worked some hip-hop into one number.
The next big performance on the group’s schedule was in late April, peak tourist season, when the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival attracts more than a million people to view brilliant hues in meadows surrounding Mount Vernon.
The festival would soon be canceled, but nothing had been announced yet and the choir was continuing to prepare.
Carolynn Comstock and her husband, Jim Owen, carpooled to the March 10 practice from the nearby city of Anacortes with their friends Ruth and Mark Backlund.
Carolynn and Jim, who ran a home remodeling business together, had been singing with the choir for 15 years and thought of it as a centering force in their lives. They had introduced the Backlunds to the choir.
la-na-coronavirus-choir-outbreak-03.jpg
Jim Owen and Carolynn Comstock, singers in the Skagit Valley Chorale, sit outside their home in Anacortes, Wash.(Karen Ducey / For The Times)
The two couples entered the rented church hall — roughly the size of a volleyball court — and offered their hands for the disinfectant.
Cushioned metal chairs extended in six rows of 20, with about a foot between chairs and one aisle down the center. There were twice as many seats as people.
Comstock, a soprano, and Owen, a tenor, took their usual seats beside each other in the third row. The rows toward the front and center filled up around them.
Burdick, 49, stood facing his choir, with an accompanist to his right seated at a grand piano.
Given the anxiety over the coronavirus, the conductor decided to lead off with a piece called “Sing On.”
The singers inhaled deeply, and sang the chorus with gusto: “Sing on! Whatever comes your way, sing on! Sing on!”
The choir moved on to other numbers, including a popular spiritual piece written by gospel legend Thomas A. Dorsey: “If we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need Him now.”
The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about an hour’s drive to the south.
But Skagit County hadn’t reported any cases, schools and businesses remained open, and prohibitions on large gatherings had yet to be announced.
On March 6, Adam Burdick, the choir’s conductor, informed the 121 members in an email that amid the “stress and strain of concerns about the virus,” practice would proceed as scheduled at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.
“I’m planning on being there this Tuesday March 10, and hoping many of you will be, too,” he wrote.
la-na-coronavirus-choir-outbreak-09.jpg
The Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, Wash.(Karen Ducey / For The Times)
Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.
“It seemed like a normal rehearsal, except that choirs are huggy places,” Burdick recalled. “We were making music and trying to keep a certain distance between each other.”
After 2½ hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.
Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.
The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.
“That’s all we can think of right now,” said Polly Dubbel, a county communicable disease and environmental health manager.
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.
512706-la-sp-dodgers-opening-day-plaschke19-MAM.jpg
CALIFORNIA
A visual look at the coronavirus pandemic
March 27, 2020
Everybody came with their own sheet music and avoided direct physical contact. Some members helped set up or remove folding chairs. A few helped themselves to mandarins that had been put out on a table in back.
Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with a growing body of evidence that the virus can be transmitted through aerosols — particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.
The World Health Organization has downplayed the possibility of transmission in aerosols, stressing that the virus is spread through much larger “respiratory droplets,” which are emitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes and quickly fall to a surface.
But a study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when the virus was suspended in a mist under laboratory conditions it remained “viable and infectious” for three hours — though researchers have said that time period would probably be no more than a half-hour in real-world conditions.
One of the authors of that study, Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a UCLA infectious disease researcher, said it’s possible that the forceful breathing action of singing dispersed viral particles in the church room that were widely inhaled.
“One could imagine that really trying to project your voice would also project more droplets and aerosols,” he said.
With three-quarters of the choir members testing positive for the virus or showing symptoms of infection, the outbreak would be considered a “super-spreading event,” he said.
Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech and an expert on airborne transmission of viruses, said some people happen to be especially good at exhaling fine material, producing 1,000 times more than others.
Marr said that the choir outbreak should be seen as a powerful warning to the public.
“This may help people realize that, hey, we really need to be careful,” she said.
***
The Skagit Valley Chorale draws its members from across northwest Washington and often sells out its winter and spring concerts at the 650-seat McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon.
Amateur singers interested in choral music tend to be older, but the group includes some young adults. Last year, Burdick worked some hip-hop into one number.
The next big performance on the group’s schedule was in late April, peak tourist season, when the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival attracts more than a million people to view brilliant hues in meadows surrounding Mount Vernon.
The festival would soon be canceled, but nothing had been announced yet and the choir was continuing to prepare.
Carolynn Comstock and her husband, Jim Owen, carpooled to the March 10 practice from the nearby city of Anacortes with their friends Ruth and Mark Backlund.
Carolynn and Jim, who ran a home remodeling business together, had been singing with the choir for 15 years and thought of it as a centering force in their lives. They had introduced the Backlunds to the choir.
la-na-coronavirus-choir-outbreak-03.jpg
Jim Owen and Carolynn Comstock, singers in the Skagit Valley Chorale, sit outside their home in Anacortes, Wash.(Karen Ducey / For The Times)
The two couples entered the rented church hall — roughly the size of a volleyball court — and offered their hands for the disinfectant.
Cushioned metal chairs extended in six rows of 20, with about a foot between chairs and one aisle down the center. There were twice as many seats as people.
Comstock, a soprano, and Owen, a tenor, took their usual seats beside each other in the third row. The rows toward the front and center filled up around them.
Burdick, 49, stood facing his choir, with an accompanist to his right seated at a grand piano.
Given the anxiety over the coronavirus, the conductor decided to lead off with a piece called “Sing On.”
The singers inhaled deeply, and sang the chorus with gusto: “Sing on! Whatever comes your way, sing on! Sing on!”
The choir moved on to other numbers, including a popular spiritual piece written by gospel legend Thomas A. Dorsey: “If we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need Him now.”
