The Science

A CDC study published in May found that a Washington choir comprising of mostly elderly members met in March and out of the 61 persons who attended 53 cases COVID-19 were infected with COVID-19 after this 2.5hr practice. The CDC report explains, “The act of singing, itself, might have contributed to transmission through emission of aerosols, which is affected by loudness of vocalization.” The report also emphasizes that it is likely highly transmissible through group singing settings. It goes on to say that “this underscores the importance of physical distancing, including maintaining at least 6 feet between persons, avoiding group gatherings and crowded places.”  

As singers we know that many elements of our practice evolve around breathing and projection and it is easy to see how this can spread droplets further into the air. Alongside this if you have ever stood next to someone in a rehearsal as they try to fumble their way through tongue twisters like “Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” the phrase say it don’t spray it certainly comes to mind! Plosives are consonants made by expelling a sudden puff of air such as ‘p’ or ‘b’ so large droplets could be expelled. Similar is experienced in fricative sounds such as ‘f’ or ‘th’ where we shoot a direct stream of air through a narrow space in the mouth travelling further than other consonants. Vowels are not off the hook in this scenario either. Singing a rounded open vowel sound in a song means your mouth is open and wide allowing an almost unobstructed flow of air and resulting droplets to be released. It is not just on the exhale we are vulnerable, as we inhale we naturally take deeper more active breaths opening ourselves up to a higher chance of catching the droplets lingering in the air around.