To choir or not to choir!

[Happyharry2003]

Hello
After a long 18 months my community choir is starting again next week. I am double vacced. It will be held in a church hall with no ventilation other than tiny slot of window, will be around 70 other people with no masks and no sd. And lots of singing.

I am not concerned overly about myself although I am overweight but I’m doing all the other things I used to do albeit not with big indoor groups.

However I work with vulnerable young people who aren’t vaccinated and my own daughter although not CV has asthma and other health issues.

Would you go? I know it’s inevitable I will get Covid by some other means and life must go on but putting myself in a big indoor crowd for a hobby doesn’t quite feel right.

Who organises the choir? Is it worth contacting the organiser, and asking whether they have thought about the ventilation issue and whether there is another space they could use that has better ventilation? I am due to restart a ‘previously high risk’ leisure activity in September (as well as returning to work in school) and am reassured by the risk assessment and details of ventilation and group sizing. The latter is in no way restrictive or over the top, but the detail makes it clear that someone has thought it through and is taking easy, free, common sense steps. As my group is of mixed age and health, and my working environment is in close contact with a wholly unvaccinated cohort, I am reassured that I will not be bringing too much risk into the group.

@AChickenCalledDaal

Just to throw something else in - I'm on my choir committee and we've just surveyed members. Of the 70 regulars, about 45 say they will definitely return, another half a dozen are very undecided and the rest have said "not yet".

If there are others in your choir who are feeling cautious, it may actually end up being a lot less than 70 people in the room. Which helps a bit with the spacing, but not with the ventilation.

I was going to say that too. I rent rooms out and we have a couple of choirs. Both of the choirs are down to around half numbers.

I work as a professional singer in a choir, we’ve been singing through every lockdown except the first. We just changed back to no distancing after 19th July and nothing awful has happened yet! However I do think the lack of ventilation in your scenario is less than ideal, my regular job is in a cathedral so pretty spacious/airy which may have helped us avoid any outbreaks! I’m kind of expecting us all to catch it from each other when term starts in September as none of us think we’ve had it. It’s a bit scary but as it’s my job and my employers are following the latest govt guidance we’re just cracking on.

I think in your situation I would probably expect something to be done about the ventilation tbh, even if no one became seriously ill it would still be a massive inconvenience if there was a large outbreak due to poor ventilation.

Singing is my life and the last 18 months have been torture for me. I bot run a choir and sing in one.

But .... singing has been recognised as a high risk activity for covid spread because of droplets. Worth looking at the website of Making Music as they have lots of advice.

My group has been meeting in my garden during the summer, but we are rapidly heading towards a time when we either stop again or go indoors.

If we choose to go indoors we certainly would not be doing it without proper ventilation. Luckily the nearby community hall has a modern air exchange system (it is an eco Passiv house), and we will be socially distancing within the hall.

The set up you are talking about does not sound good to me OP - too many people in an unventilated space.

I wouldn't be comfortable with that while case rates are so high and with such a large group of people. It would be quite likely for someone there to have covid and it will be all over the room in aerosols and droplets after an hour.

I think testing and ventilation is key. I choreographed two musical productions in June. One had a cast of 50 14-18 year olds, all unvaccinated. They were, to the best of our ability, distanced into 2 bubbles but still up to 30 teens singing, dancing and projecting on the same stage. To the best of our knowledge no covid cases arose from it. But all the cast and crew were testing twice a week and rehearsals were mostly distanced in a well ventilated room.

I would choose to go in your position regardless. But I'm very relaxed about Covid. I do think they should relocate to a room with Windows or a door that opens to the open air. And I think they should be asked to test before sessions. Obviously you can't force people to do so and they're not that accurate anyway but better than nothing.