Returning to Live Music and How a Tiny Mutation Sent Delta All Over the World

A few nights ago I went to my first live music show since pre-pandemic times: Ann Wilson, the vocalist from Heart. She and her new band were at The Egg, a small ovoid-shaped venue in Albany, New York. We were in the third row, very close to the stage. All of us wore masks, and should a smidge of nostril emerge, an admonishing usher materialized instantly.

 

"It's great to see all of your smiling eyes!" joked Ann as she looked out at the limited-capacity audience. The performers were unmasked, Ann belting out the tunes, the guitarist next to her writhing in the throes of guitar-face, a malady in which a man playing a guitar assumes a simian visage, like Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes caught deep in thought. Who knew that guitar-face would one day deter spread of a virus?

 

The show was amazing, full of rock classics, Heart tunes, and songs Ann wrote during lockdown. COVID restrictions just couldn't reign in long-ingrained concert behavior. And so we all belted out Dream On and Barracuda along with Ann and her band the Amazing Dawgs, our masks undulating to the beat, as I hoped fervently that none of the oldish audience would keel over from asphyxiation.

 

"An Experimental Pop Concert" Simulates Viral Spread

 

This morning I was happy to see a new paper, "The risk of indoor sports and culture events for the transmission of COVID-19," published in Nature Communications. Stefan Moritz and colleagues in Germany staged "an experimental pop concert" in August 2020 and found that good ventilation and "suitable hygiene measures" could limit virus-carrying aerosols and droplets.

 

To continue reading, go to my DNA Science blog, where this post first appeared.