When will people learn that the coronavirus is real, and they must refrain from larger gatherings?
Skagit Valley Chorale, a Seattle, Washington choir, decided to defy the nationwide social distance order and hold their weekly choir rehearsal.
Up until now, Skagit County hadn’t reported any cases.
On March 6, the choir conductor, Adam Burdick, emailed the choir’s 121 members and informed them that amid the “stress and strain of the virus,” practice would continue 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,” Burdick wrote.
Sixty members showed up, and the greeter offered hand sanitizer, as members refrained from hugs and handshakes.
” It seemed like a normal rehearsal, minus the hugs and handshakes,” Burdick recalled. “We were making music and trying to keep a certain distance between each other.”
Three weeks later, 45 of the 60 members that attended the practice have been diagnosed with COVID-19, with three being hospitalized and two passing away.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the situation has left county health officials stunned, with many concluding that the virus was transmitted through the air from one person to the next.
” That’s all we can think of right now,” said Polly Dubbel, a county communicable disease and environmental health manager.
Eight people who attended the rehearsal told the LA Times that nobody was coughing, sneezing, or appeared to be ill.
According to reports, everybody brought their own sheet music and avoided direct physical contact. But, a few members helped set up folding chairs, and others helped themselves to oranges that had been placed out on a table.
Experts said the choir outbreak is consistent with growing evidence that the virus can be transmitted through particles smaller than 5 micrometers that can float in the air for minutes or longer.
However, Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a UCLA infectious disease researcher, said it’s possible that the forceful breathing from singing dispensed the viral particles in the church and was inhaled through the 2-hour event.
” One could imagine that really trying to project your voice would also project more droplets,” Smith said.
” With a little under half of the choir members testing positive for the virus or showing symptoms of infection, the outbreak would be considered a “super-spreading event,” Smith said.
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