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Why Singers Might Be Covid-19 Super-Spreaders

Choirs are a secret lifeblood of our country. It’s unclear when and how we’ll ever sing together again.

Sara Austin
Elemental
8 min readMay 6, 2020

Photo: Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images

Every five years in July, more than 1,000 choirs gather to perform together in Tallinn, the impossibly pretty seaside capital of Estonia. As many as 35,000 choristers (oldest: 90; youngest: five) process through medieval cobblestone streets to the festival grounds, where they join in song with an audience of 85,000. The effect is what an official video calls “not merely singing… but breathing together.” From the moment I learned about this event from a friend who attended last year, it became a dream of mine to experience it.

Until, of course, it became a nightmare. It’s not just that a gathering of 120,000 people would be dangerous during a global pandemic. It’s that singing itself might be particularly dangerous. After a single (now notorious) rehearsal of the Skagit Valley Chorale in Mount Vernon, Washington, in early March, 45 of the 60 attendees fell ill with symptoms of Covid-19 and at least two have died. As Vanity Fair reports, scientists have traced other outbreaks to a funeral, church service, and rowdy bar, all involving enthusiastic group singing. Japanese scientists have reported outbreaks possibly tied to karaoke bars, says William Ristenpart, PhD, a…

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Elemental
Elemental

Published in Elemental

Elemental is a former publication from Medium for science-backed health and wellness coverage. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Sara Austin
Sara Austin

Written by Sara Austin

Sara Austin is a writer and editor in New York. She has held senior editorial positions at Real Simple, Cosmopolitan, Self, and Marie Claire.

Responses (9)

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On Monday evenings when I would always have attended chorale rehearsals from 7:00 to 9:30 in the evening then gathered afterwards for some partying, I can now only cry. Ditto for my church choir on Wednesdays. My other hobby is ballroom dance.

Thank you, Sara. For so many of us, singing is such an important part of our lives and spiritual/mental health. When I sang in Glee Club in college, my friends said they could find me on stage by looking for the singer with the biggest smile on her…

Hi Sara. I totally get what you mean about the experience of singing in a choir. I have called it "how I joy myself". I came down with Covid19 in March after being exposed to it at my last choir session before the shutdown. By the time I was…