Background
In the runup to Christmas, my wife and I like to attend sing-alongs of Handel’s Messiah. That’s the one with the Hallelujah Chorus. I posted about this in December 2019, Post #496.
Or, rather, liked. Past tense. That was pre-COVID.
As we learned the hard way, both here and abroad, getting together with a bunch of people and singing is probably the single easiest way to spread COVID-19. In the U.S., the first such choral super-spreader event was the Mount Vernon, Washington choir practice, which left dozens ill and several dead. Abroad, many countries saw similar incidents, such as this superspreader event at a church choir in Berlin.
There’s no mystery here. COVID-19 is spread by aerosols, and singing produces as much aerosol as coughing. From the standpoint of spreading an aerosol-borne disease, standing in the middle of a choir practice is equivalent to standing in a room full of people who are continuously coughing.
It just sounds a lot better.
Most churches all figured this out, at some point, and pretty much all mainstream U.S. churches banned singing in church during the height of the pandemic (see Post #708). But that was only after a number of church-related super-spreader events (see Post #679).
Along with that, of course, many (but far from all) Messiah sing-alongs were cancelled for one or more years.
They’re back
A typical example of the adaptation of Messiah to COVID is the long-standing event at Clarendon United Methodist Church. We attended for years, and it was always one of the best in the area. The last pre-COVID year was the 2019, when they held their 48th annual sing-along. In 2020, risks were high enough that they cancelled the in-person service, and instead offered up a retrospective on (what would have been) their 49th Messiah sing-along (reference). In 2021, they held an in-person service for their 50th annual event, but required masks and proof of vaccination or recent negative PCR test (reference). Finally, this year, in 2022, they are holding their 51st sing along, with masks required (reference).
Others that we have consistently attended in the past are being offered this year, but with no requirement for masks. To pick an example, the Reston Chorale always manages to put on a very nice rendition of Messiah. The ads for the 2022 sing-along make no mention of any precautions (reference).
Near as I can tell, Clarendon UMC is the outlier for requiring any precautions at all. No others that I have found in my area make any mention of a mask requirement.
So, what are the odds?
Clarendon UMC looks like it holds about 500 people. Using the same calculation that I’ve used in the past, with our current rate of roughly 10 new cases per day per 100K population, the odds that at least one person in that crowd has an active COVID-19 infection is 36% (calculation not shown).
This should probably be moderated somewhat by this being an elderly and fairly upscale crowd. So the true odds may be somewhat smaller than that.
Then come all the unknowables.
First, being in the same church as someone with an active case is not the same as getting infected. Mainly because of distance, but also because my wife and I have both recently had the bivalent booster shot, so our immunity should still be pretty good.
Second, it’s not clear what the impact of the masking requirement will be. It cuts down the risks, for sure. And I’ll be wearing a 3M unvented N95, appropriately fitted. But there’s no telling what the average singer will be wearing. Or how they will be wearing it.
Finally, there’s the evidence from last year’s events. I cannot find even a single mention of an outbreak of COVID being traced back to a Messiah sing-along. I don’t know whether that’s because it didn’t happen, because it wasn’t traced, or because it just didn’t make the news.
If I had to roll it all up into one big explicit guess, between a) the size of the church, b) our recent booster shot, c) the age and high educational attainment of the audience, and d) N95 respirators, I’d have to guess at least a 100-fold reduction in the odds of actually acquiring a COVID-19 infection at this event. Relative to that 36% chance that somebody attending the event with have an active case of COVID.
Or maybe a one-in-300 chance of getting infected. Fully acknowledging the guesswork that went into that. But, you know, it’s better to make a decision with some number in mind, no matter how hazily derived, then just go with a gut feeling.
And to me, right now, for something I’m going to do once a year, that number doesn’t look too awful.
So, YOLO. And I ain’t getting any younger. After talking it over with my wife, maybe it’s time to get out our Messiah scores and start get up to speed on our parts.
Hallelujah.
