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Science

How Coronavirus Spread From One Member To 87% of the Singers at a Washington Choir Practice (cnn.com) 74

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Public health officials studying the Covid-19 outbreak among members of a Washington choir found numerous ways the virus could have spread, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From a report: Authorities interviewed all 122 members of the Skagit Valley Chorale, which met every Tuesday for 2.5 hours before the outbreak. They focused on two rehearsals held March 3 and March 10 in Mount Vernon, Washington. The report said 53 people were sickened and two died -- and all but one attended both rehearsals. The report said Thirty-three cases were confirmed, the report said, and 20 people had probable infections. There were 61 people at the March 10 rehearsal, including one member who reported having had cold-like symptoms. That person tested positive for Covid-19 and was the first case identified by health authorities, according to the report. That person attended both practices but didn't start showing symptoms until March 7.
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How Coronavirus Spread From One Member To 87% of the Singers at a Washington Choir Practice More

How Coronavirus Spread From One Member To 87% of the Singers at a Washington Choir Practice

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  • Who knew (Score:5, Funny)

    by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @01:59PM (#60064612)

    Exhaling into the faces of other people tightly packed into a group? Who knew that a virus could spread like that?

    Oh wait. Everyone knew that.

    • Exhaling into the faces of other people tightly packed into a group? Who knew that a virus could spread like that?

      Oh wait. Everyone knew that.

      Half of slashdot still believes it can't be spread that way.

      • In an after-COVID world we should all stop wearing deodorant. Then you know that when you get a whiff of someone's BO, you're close enough to inhale SARS-CoV-2.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Exhaling into the faces of other people tightly packed into a group? Who knew that a virus could spread like that?

        Oh wait. Everyone knew that.

        Half of slashdot still believes it can't be spread that way.

        Well, that may not be the best source. But you are certainly correct.

    • Noooooo nooo noooo... it spreads through sex with leprechauns.

      Choirs are known to be highly promiscuous.

    • Re:Who knew (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15, 2020 @04:31PM (#60065330)

      Exhaling into the faces of other people tightly packed into a group? Who knew that a virus could spread like that?

      Oh wait. Everyone knew that.

      Everyone knew it except for the guy who said these things:
      January20: "I know more about viruses than anyone."
      January 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."
      February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
      February 24: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
      February 25: "CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."
      February 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away... They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine."
      February 26: "The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero."
      February 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."
      February 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
      February 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."
      March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"
      March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."
      March 4: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work â" some of them go to work, but they get better."
      March 5: "I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work."
      March 5: "The United States has, as of now, only 129 cases and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!"
      March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down⦠a tremendous job at keeping it down."
      March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. And the tests are beautifulâ¦. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."
      March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."
      March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
      March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      There is an error in the report, they do know that one person was infected, they do not know whether any of the others were also, already infected just with negligible symptoms. They only tested after symptoms and it seems only after quite aggressive symptoms, for the data to be worthwhile, all should have been tested and the test repeated daily for the following 7 days. A biased assumption that only one could have started it, puts the conclusions in doubt or that others could have been infected from other

  • Three of the 53 persons who became ill were hospitalized, and two died. And of those that had to be hospitalized, and those that died, how many were ELDERLY, which are at a higher risk? So 0.05% were infected/sick and 99.95% had no symptoms.

    • The summary says 20- 53 were noticeably sick (Score:4, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @02:09PM (#60064664) Journal

      Not dead != No symptoms

      In fact the summary says 33 were confirmed infected through testing and 20 others seemed to have it. Guess how you know all those people are sick without testing all of them?

    • Re:But how many ended up sick? (Score:5, Informative)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @02:14PM (#60064696)
      The summary actually links to the CDC study [cdc.gov] which has that information, or at least a summary of the data. From the Investigation and Findings section:

      Among the 61 choir members who attended the March 10 practice, the median age was 69 years (range = 31–83 years); 84% were women. Median age of those who became ill was 69 years, and 85% of cases occurred in women.

      Also from the same section:

      Among the recognized risk factors for severe illness, the most common was age, with 75.5% of patients aged [>=] 65 years. Most patients (67.9%) did not report any underlying medical conditions, 9.4% had one underlying medical condition, and 22.6% had two or more underlying medical conditions. All three hospitalized patients had two or more underlying medical conditions.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        OK, my takeaway from this is that if you're looking for a GILF, join a church choir.

        • OK, my takeaway from this is that if you're looking for a GILF, join a church choir.

          Is that "God I'd Like to ..." -- I'm confused. :-)

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        According to the state PHD, the youngest person in this cluster to get sick was 31.

        This is pretty consistent with what we think we know about COVID-19. Anyone can get it; and anyone can have serious complications, although risks of complications are greater for people over 60 or with preexisting conditions.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • As I recall... it's basically 0.2% for each age up to 49. It rises from .2% to 2.3% at 60 and from 2.3% to 6% at 70 and 6% to 10% at 80 and and 10% to 16% by age 89. Can't recall past there but some over 100 have survived.

          But kids die. teens die. young, the middle aged, the old , and the elderly all die. And many more need hospital care.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          Sounds about right, the biggest variable that no-one seems to mention is vitamin D deficiency, a billion people are vitamin D-deficient, they are literally 8 times more likely to have severe case of the COVID-19 if they get it as compared to people with good vitamin D levels..

          So the governments could be preventing a lot of the deaths but good advice just isn't forthcoming. Also misleading is this 2m distancing thing, a sneeze can quickly disperse particles 8m forwards, 8m is a lot more than 2m obviously, yo

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      Basically:

      But really, how does this directly affect me? If I don't personally suffer the worst case scenario then it isn't bad and I shouldn't do anything different even if that means making others suffer said worst case scenario.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @02:08PM (#60064654)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eriks ( 31863 )

      Bonobos aren't monkeys, they're chimpanzees. Also a groovy recording artist.

  • What's gonna be the conspiracy spin of that?

    My money is on "there is a G5 transmitter nearby".

    • Holy shit! Jet planes [wikipedia.org] are causing it as well now? The 5G towers were completely stationary but a G-five has a range of over 5,000 miles. No wonder it spread around the world so quickly!

      • Aaaaaand a new contender for the most insane conspiracy theory enters the ring.

        Keep 'em coming, I mean, if they believe one bullshit story, they'll believe any.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • What's gonna be the conspiracy spin of that?

      My money is on "there is a G5 transmitter nearby".

      NO NO NO NO NO. G5 gives you cancer, not Coronavirus. Get it right, you insensitive clod!

      • How do you know? Did you do the autopsy?
        How many COVID deaths are actually cancer deaths that the governments are just using to curtail our civil liberties?

        It's really sad that I have to do this- but with today's slashdot audience, you can never really be sure: </sarcasm>

      • Hah! That's what THEY want you to think!

  • Shouldn't people self-isolate as soon as they experience cold symptoms? that is SOP where I live.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by eltwo ( 4283339 )
      Not if you're a member of the Pandemic Singers.

    • Shouldn't people self-isolate as soon as they experience cold symptoms? that is SOP where I live.

      Sure, but, as in "normal" times, it's difficult for many, especially low-wage, hourly employees who don't get sick pay, to forgo working and not get paid. It's uncertain going forward what will happen once Emergency status is lifted in areas and people lose the protections that afforded.

  • Interesting how the story changed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Octorian ( 14086 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @03:37PM (#60065110) Homepage

    Originally, the story was that it was a single rehearsal where all the old people were very calm, polite, and sanitized their hands when coming in. You know, the simplified (and perhaps clueless) version of what everyone was telling us to do back in early March.

    Now we hear it was actually two rehearsals, and there was a lot of mingling and interaction.

    It was still probably the singing that did them in, but it sounds like the level of "social interaction" was a lot higher than the initial scary stories had led us to believe.

  • Who knew? (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday May 15, 2020 @03:51PM (#60065182)

    ...that preaching to the choir could be deadly.

  • There are criminal punishments for deliberately infecting people with sexually-transmitted deceases.

    Maybe, it is time we start suing the "typhoid Marys" for infecting — either deliberately or through carelessness — other people? Not just for COVID-19, of course, for anything.

    If my infection can be traced back to you, and I can convince the 2/3rds of the jury, that it was your fault, you owe me — for medical treatment, lost wages (if any), as well as the "pain and suffering".

    Behaviors like

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