Paging Dr. Hamblin: When Will It Be Safe to Sing Together?

Making music has benefits beyond tradition. In a pandemic, though, it’s also riskier than staying silent.

A general rule for minimizing the spread of any respiratory virus: Silence is safer than whispering. Whispering is safer than talking. Talking is safer than singing.

In the context of so much being shut down, the question of singing may sound trivial. But it’s not at all. Given that a huge portion of the world population regularly attends religious services, and that many services involve group singing, navigating this question is crucial for the year to come. Thousands of lives may hang on how it is done.

As the United States reopens, continued spread of the virus among some people—such as family members, roommates, or possibly co-workers—will be inevitable. What we can most hope to prevent are the “super-spreading” scenarios in which one person infects dozens of others. Choirs have repeatedly proved to be grounds for such events in the coronavirus pandemic.

The most infamous case was in Washington State, where one person attended a choir practice in early March while experiencing flu-like symptoms. Three weeks later, two fellow singers were dead. A subsequent study found that the “act of singing” contributed to 53 of the 61 choir members eventually testing positive. Around the same time, 102 of 130 members of an Amsterdam choir developed COVID-19 after a performance, and four people associated with the choir died. In Austria, 43 of 44 participants in a choir seminar tested positive. Similar super-spread choir outbreaks have been reported in South Korea and Germany. These events took place just before shutdowns went into effect. They will happen again, when shutdowns end.

With so much evidence now compiled, the simple answer to your question—don’t sing in groups—could seem obvious. In some places, leaders see it that way. Some parts of Germany, for example, have outlawed singing in churches. No law like that is forthcoming in the U.S., where churches are effectively exempt from much of the legal system. So decisions will largely be left up to local officials, individual congregations, and congregants. Read More