Policymakers across the world banned choral singing during the COVID-19 pandemic after taking wrongful interpretations of a high-profile outbreak as facts, a new study suggests.
The study, set to be published in Public Health, a British journal, revisits what was widely reported as a “super-spreader event” in March 2020 at Skagit County in northwest Washington State. Among 61 Skagit Valley Chorale members who attended the March 10 rehearsal at a local church, 53 were diagnosed with COVID-19 within a few weeks, including two who died.
In a report that had since been used by governments across the world to justify choir bans and even church shutdowns, a team of Skagit County Public Health investigators concluded that one choir member, who was known to have cold-like symptoms, ended up infecting 52 others….