As it happens, I have spent the whole of the Covid 19 lockdown period in Denmark: I’ve been here since late March. I have, however, kept in close touch with the pandemic news from across the world and most particularly from Wales and Ceredigion. My partner, Lotte, is now back in Blaenplwyf managing a burgeoning demand for AirBnB holidays (a little tourism light in the Covid darkness for Wales perhaps). I think the Welsh government has acted very effectively for the most part, resisting some catastrophic UK Government policies. And Ceredigion has thankfully and due to its own good efforts been spared the worst of the pandemic.
The issue that I want to take up with you is the apparent ongoing prohibition on groups such as choirs singing outdoors. As you all know, I’m a keen member of peace and justice choir Côr Gobaith.
First and very briefly, let me tell you the enormous moral boosting impact that community singing had here in Denmark. Every Friday on TV for the first three months of the pandemic a marvellous man, Philip Faber, led the nation in signing all the whole shared repertoire of folk and popular song. People were encouraged out into their common courtyards and onto their balconies as the TV cameras panned around Denmark. It was truly heartening and, I believe, fostered the solidarity with which the nation responded so well to the pandemic. And there has been no mention then or since of the practice having increased the risk of transmission of the Covid 19 virus.
I realise that there have been cases where members of choirs have contracted Covid 19, and so there has become an orthodoxy that choral singing is dangerous. However, those were choirs meeting and singing indoors and the likelihood is that close proximity, communal touching of surfaces and possibly poor ventilation were the mediums of transmission rather than singing itself.
By the by, it is still uncertain whether and for how long aerosol transmission of the virus is possible. Otherwise the assumption is that larger droplets of saliva and mucus fall to ground within 2 or 3 metres. Meanwhile, research is ongoing into how choirs might sing safely together indoors in close proximity. Throughout the pandemic I have been researching the (shifting) science, particularly with respect to the effectiveness or otherwise of wearing masks of various types. I could inundate you with supportive reference for what I’m arguing here, but perhaps the best single source I can recommend is the WHO. You’ll understand from reading this that the issue of aerosol transmission remains far from certain.
My petition to you is that you lobby at your various levels of government to allow groups to sing together outdoors provided they maintain social distancing. It does not seem right to me that government has decided it is okay to risk transmission of the virus for economic reasons while denying much less risky cultural activities. People indoors in shops and pubs and so on, touching common surfaces and relying on social distancing, individual adherence to good hand hygiene, appropriate mask wearing (which it seldom seems to be) and adequate ventilation are clearly more at risk of transmitting the virus than a choir meeting, socially distancing and singing out in the open air.
Wales is the land of song and singing should be sustaining us through these terrible times rather than being denied to us with no scientific justification. Any economic recovery without a cultural recovering is tantamount to just existence, not living. That said, I know from Lotte’s involvement in the Natural Voice Network that paid community choir leaders are unable to do their work and many have already been forced to give up, so there is an economic aspect to this petition too.
Thank you for your consideration and please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide any more information.