My optimism about the next phase of the pandemic feels more justified with each passing week. The vaccine programmes are ramping up and getting shots into people’s arms, including my own. Europe seems a long way behind the US and the UK, but it is roughly where those countries were just one month ago, so I predict that the wait will not be too long for most people. As for developing countries, I also think that the current pessimism is misplaced. Once the west and China get up to 60%, they will start to donate huge quantities, and many countries can hope for something like herd immunity by the end of 2021.
What happens next? One challenge for all countries is how to get the rate of vaccinated adults up from 60% to 80%, once the vaccine becomes available to all who want it. Depending on the level of fear and distrust and laziness, many might choose to delay or avoid their shot. For this phase I love the Israeli initiative to give all vaccinated people a green symbol on a national app. Restaurants, clubs, businesses and synagogues then have a choice whether to opt in or opt out. If they opt in, then they can only admit vaccinated people, but then those people can behave without restriction. If they opt out they can continue to admit the non-vaccinated, but the overall business then remains subject to restrictions on capacity, mask wearing and so on. I find this brilliant, and I believe the main effect will be to quickly persuade many of the reluctant to get vaccinated, once they see their lives becoming sadder than their peers. I hope other countries adopt this sort of scheme, and not just for travel.
In the US, I can already sense the coming surge of people no longer following the stricter guidelines, supported by businesses anxious to rebuild their followings. I feel it myself. On Friday I will visit a museum on the subway, and I would have few qualms with other such ventures, and this feeling will become stronger with every passing month. I don’t think this sort of behaviour is reckless so long as it is within limits – I will still wear a mask in many situations and avoid crowds, and will continue with the added hand washing and so on. But we won’t want to hear any longer of more stringent restrictions. The CDC obviously sense this coming, and today announced that gatherings containing only vaccinated people are now permitted in houses and without masks.
So soon I will be looking for some updated realistic guidance about choral singing. Those of us who sing in groups have been almost silenced throughout the pandemic, because the science suggests that the droplets we emit through energetic singing are especially dangerous. That science is supported by a tragic incident at the start of the pandemic, where disease and even death ripped through a choir who organised one rehearsal too many. It is chastening to realise that I believe that I attended a rehearsal for a different choir on exactly the same day.
Now there is a need for some sensible risk management. I accept that we cannot go back to singing as we did, even if a group is fully vaccinated. But the current guidance, which is to hardly sing at all except outdoors or in tiny, tiny groups, already feels too restrictive. It is a year to the day from the last time I was able to sing with my wonderful church choir, and we are all becoming less patient now. Next month, by which time most or maybe all of us will have been vaccinated, that impatience will grow, and with it the temptation to invent our own solution.
So I am hoping that the various associations are busy creating new guidelines. Conceding that I am a total amateur, I can suggest a few.
Firstly, ventilation seems to be critical. I have one choir that rehearses in a tiny space below ground level and with tiny windows. I don’t think we can sing there any more. Venues will have to be spacious and airy and equipped with devices to increase ventilation.
We probably should have implemented this years ago. I have probably been merrily passing on flu viruses in choir rehearsals forever. This extra awareness is one of the beneficial side effects of the pandemic.
Other steps depend on whether everybody in a group is vaccinated. Even if they are, I suggest that we stand at least three feet apart horizontally (so I cannot stretch out my arm and touch the torso of my neighbour), six feet apart vertically (so that I can’t emit particles to anybody directly in front of me) and fifteen feet away for people facing me (such as an audience, congregation or conductor). If we are seated, this can be easily arranged via spacing seats and have neighbouring rows offset, like they do in theatres. Perhaps a conductor would have to wear a face shield if he or she needed to be closer to the group. If not everybody is vaccinated, the distances will have to be larger, or perhaps unvaccinated singers will need to be placed in positions at the end of rows and further apart.
Then there are sensible other measures to reduce risk, but ideas that might take longer to get used to. We could restrict forte singing to specific short bursts. We could wear masks when not at our seats, like people do at restaurants now. We could institute regular five-minute breaks for the ventilation to do its job, and sanitation protocols too. We should also be careful about communal water or food – again, something we probably always should have been.
A tougher alternative would be to sing with a mask on, except for a few minutes each rehearsal or in performances (where spacing might have to be even wider, and the gap to the nearest audience member might need to be larger still). But, having sung with a mask on for the last few months, I don’t like the idea. It took me a while to get used to breath control while masked, until I realised that most of the problem lay in my brain. More seriously, diction is a disaster in masks, and diction is too important in any choir to sacrifice easily.
Another restriction is about singing when sick or sickening with anything viral. Again, we should not have been doing this in the past, but now it has become obvious. We don’t want to let down the group or to miss a concert experience, but the risk is too high. Some of my smaller groups will find it difficult to adapt to this one. At church, with only one or two to a part, we may need to institute a system of understudies and last minute backups. Sometimes the director might have to postpone a planned song and replace it with something simpler and not dependent on a missing singer. We will have to get used to it, but it is a price worth paying.
I hope I am not being reckless with these ideas. While vaccinations are not available to all they are probably premature, but in just one more month we will be a lot further forward with immunisation. It is surely better to be prepared with something that is relatively safe and also practical, rather than have groups making up their own rules in the rush to start singing again.
Today I received my first invitation to sing in a project for twelve months. The project is planned for August and I probably cannot make it, but simply receiving the e-mail made it feel like spring. Relief is on the way. Let us embrace it with due caution but also with realism about risks.
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