Noteworthy News, May 7, 2021
Important upcoming dates:
Tuesday, May 11, 6:30 Board Meeting (Zoom)
Monday, May 24, 7 pm Rodgers & Hammerstein Virtual Sing-Along (Zoom)
Monday, June 21, 7 pm Summer Sings! (Zoom)
Monday, July 19, 7 pm Summer Sings! (Zoom)
Monday, August 16, 7 pm Summer Sings! (Zoom)
Please check your calendars now to ensure you have the dates noted for our Summer Sings program(s). We are planning on continuing the use of a "virtual format" as health and safety concerns evolve over the summer.
You may recall that our Operations Manager is a part-time position, averaging 10-15 hours per week. Well -- Jayde has been offered a full-time opportunity at Lake Grove Presbyterian Church where she has also held a part-time job and will be leaving us in June (full-time job and full-time benefits). I know everyone joins me in wishing her well and thanking her for the enthusiasm and unparalleled commitment to our Choir, especially during this past year of unusual challenges. A job posting will be advertised next week in a variety of local and regional publications.
Our Board Chair (Katherine Lefever) has created a special Health & Safety Advisory Committee and asked Choir members Zarya Rubin-Fogelson, Kendra Killian, and Trisha Williams to assist us. All 3 are professionals who are directly involved in the health care community. The following information is provided by Zarya, an MD and Neurologist by training, now a "functional medicine practitioner:"
Why do we care about COVID-19 and singing? Last March (as in, 14 months ago) our lives were turned upside down when the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) hit the globe in the worst pandemic we have seen in a century. We now know that the virus is highly contagious, especially the new variants and is spread person-to-person through both close contact as well as airborne transmission.
COVID-19 infection can be asymptomatic in young, healthy people, but can still spread to others and cause severe illness, disability, and death. Over 579 thousand Americans and 3.2 million people worldwide have died of COVID in the last year. Unlike a regular cold or flu virus, COVID-19 is much more infectious, much more deadly, and appears to have the potential for severe long-term consequences such as nerve damage, brain damage, lung and heart damage, as well as chronic fatigue. Certain groups are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection including the elderly, people with chronic illness and comorbidity, and the immunocompromised. But the greatest number of current hospitalizations in the state of Oregon are people who are younger and without any underlying conditions.
Compared to regular activities such as talking, singing generates a large number of aerosolized droplets that can transmit the virus and remain in the air AND remain infectious for hours. It can also spread to people much more than six feet away. Among professional singers, or “athletic singers” as we are dubbed because of very developed diaphragm muscles and lung capacity, we can generate even more force and even more particles.
Many “superspreader" events where multiple people are infected at one time from a single source have been traced back to choral singing and rehearsals in Washington (Skagit County Choral), Germany, Amsterdam, Canada, and many other places. Choral singing is currently listed as one of the most dangerous activities to undertake during COVID, which is why we have been relegated to Zoom.
Current recommendations are to pause ALL indoor singing activities and to engage in outdoor only gatherings with 6 feet of distance and masking by all. But come the Fall, could that change for the better? If we reach herd immunity with increasing vaccination rates, will we be able to get back to in-person singing? Stay tuned for NEXT WEEK’s edition of Noteworthy News to learn more!
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