Driveway Choir! Now on national television!

One of the most effective ways known to spread COVID-19 turns out to be a bunch of people singing together in the same room - like, say, a choir rehearsal or choral performance. There's just something about moving that much air in and out of your lungs that just screams "superspreader event!" Trying to sing together via videoconferencing apps like Zoom (which have significant audio latency) descends almost immediately into chaos, as the sound goes completely out of sync in about five seconds. And everyone submitting solo recordings and hoping that a good video editor can stitch them all together just doesn't have that immediate feeling of joy.

Out of this frustration, the Driveway Choir concept was born. Get your choristers in individual cars in a parking lot (so we can keep physical distance), give everyone a handheld microphone (so we can be heard from across said parking lot), and broadcast the mixed audio over low-power FM radio (so we can actually hear our fellow choristers), staying as in-tune and on-beat as is possible.

Bryce and Kathryn Denney put together the technical tools needed to make this work, and came up to FPC a couple of months ago to let my choir sing together for the first time in literally months. They've been working with other choirs and musical organizations as well. Today, the Today Show ran a feature about them:

https://www.today.com/video/this-choir-sings-in-harmony-from-their-cars-to-keep-everyone-safe-96400453971

There's a still picture of my church's driveway choir at 2:44 in the video. (No, I'm not visible in that one; alas.)

Local COVID-19 updates

As of 5PM today, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 24 newly reported confirmed deaths (5 more than yesterday - up 26.3%) for a total of 10,281 and 2,721 newly reported confirmed cases (270 less than yesterday - down 9.0%) for a total of 200,050. The seven day average positivity rate is 3.02%, compared to 3.21% yesterday. Excluding higher education, the seven day average positivity rate is 4.84%, compared to 5.13% yesterday. The number of estimated active cases was 39,073 (1,745 more than yesterday - up 4.7%). The state also reported zero newly reported probable deaths (same as yesterday) for a total of 231 and zero newly reported probable cases (215 less than yesterday) for a total of 6,800. Combining the confirmed and probable numbers gives 24 new deaths for a total of 10,512 and 2,721 new cases for a total of 206,850. There were 893 COVID-19 patients in hospital (2 more than yesterday - up 0.2%), 192 COVID-19 patients in ICUs (5 more than yesterday - up 2.7%) and 88 COVID-19 patients on ventilators (intubated) (3 more than yesterday - up 3.5%).

Of the Commonwealth's four "key metrics" listed on page 2 of the report, the 7-day average of newly confirmed cases is 1,858 (143 more than yesterday - up 8.3%), 1,083% above the lowest observed value of 157 on July 4 and 26% below the highest observed value of 2,502 on November 17. The 7-day weighted average of positive molecular test rate is 3.0% (0 less than yesterday - down 5.9%), 290% above the lowest observed value of 0.8% on September 21 and 89% below the highest observed value of 27.7% on April 15. The 7-day average number of COVID-19 patients in hospital is 872 (22 more than yesterday - up 2.6%), 462% above the lowest observed value of 155 on August 26 and 78% below the highest observed value of 3,874 on April 27. The 7-day average number of COVID-19 deaths is 24 (same as yesterday), 118% above the lowest observed value of 11 on September 9. and 87% below the highest observed value of 175 on April 24.

Two weeks ago, the 7 day confirmed case average was 1,282, the 7 day confirmed deaths average was 18, the 7 day hospitalization average was 500, and the 7 day weighted average positivity rate was 2.3% (or 3.92% excluding higher education).

A mixed bag day-to-day; deaths and hospitalizations all up, cases and positivity both down. We're still seeing the estimated active cases number rising, meaning we're having healthy people get infected faster than infected people are getting healthy, and that's no good. Plus, we've been above two thousand new cases almost every day for the past two weeks, and that's no good either.

Noteworthy: the state has now passed two hundred thousand confirmed cases.

On the other hand, the front page story of today's Boston Globe is about the "rare sight on the horizon - hope" that the end of the pandemic may actually be in view:
( Read more... )

The town of Acton has yet to post an update today. As of the most recent report at 5PM on November 21, the town of Acton reported 291 cumulative cases of COVID-19 in town with 33 individuals in isolation, 237 recovered and 21 fatalities.