It was 2020, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, like so many cultural institutions, had suspended performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through P.J. Brennan, chief medical officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Orchestra sought expertise to help understand whether its musicians could return to playing in a safe physical arrangement that would minimize the chances of exposing one another, or their audiences, to SARS-CoV-2.
"The Orchestra director didn't want the musicians to be far apart; they needed to be close together to produce the best sound," says Arratia, of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. "And yet, if they needed to be separated with plexiglass, that also posed a problem." The musicians reported problems hearing one another and poor sightlines with plexiglass dividers. "The challenge was, how can we get away from this to the point where they can play unobstructed but still safely," Arratia says.
Now, in a publication in Physics of Fluids, Arratia, Jerolmack, and colleagues report on their findings, which suggest the aerosols musicians produce dissipate within about six feet. The results not only informed the arrangement of the Philadelphia Orchestra as they resumed performances in the summer of 2020 but also laid the groundwork for how other musical groups might think about safely gathering and playing.
[...] Based on their observations, the aerosols produced by these "mini-concerts" dissipated, settling into the flow of the background air draft, within about 2 meters, or 6 feet—reassuringly similar, the researchers say, to what has been measured for ordinary speaking or breathing. Only flute and trombone-generated aerosols traveled beyond that distance, for the flute perhaps because the air travels over the instrument instead of the instrument acting like a mask to prevent the spread of aerosols.
[...] "Now you have something to work with for potential future concerns, maybe an outbreak of influenza or something like that," says Arratia. "You can use our findings about flow, plug in your numbers about infectiousness and viral loads, and adapt it to understand risk.
Journal Reference:
Quentin Brosseau, Ranjiangshang Ran, Ian Graham, et al., Flow and aerosol dispersion from wind musical instruments [open], Physics of Fluids, 2022. DOI: 10.1063/5.0098273
(Score: 1, Troll) by Barenflimski on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:28PM (2 children)
"Now you have something to work with for potential future concerns, maybe an outbreak of influenza or something like that,"
Right? Exactly. In the future we'll be looking to contain even the sniffles. "Masks save lives", which is why no one died in California.
Welcome to planet earth people. You're just part of the larger fractal. To the next larger organism, called earth, you're just like bacteria. You come and go.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 21 2022, @01:30PM (1 child)
You probably also think first aid doesn't save lives, because after all there are people who die despite of getting first aid.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday July 21 2022, @04:51PM
Thats exactly what I think. You are insightful.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:51PM (4 children)
What if you had a bunch of fans, continuously blowing air vented in from outside, forward through and past the orchestra? They could be large but slow so they moved a lot of air but didn't make a lot of noise. Seems like any aerosols would then be, er, conducted forward and out of the orchestra pit and not have a chance to build up in sufficient concentrations to infect anyone.
I mean, you'd want to make sure the fans tested negative for SARS-COV-2, but that should be easy enough :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2022, @09:09PM (1 child)
If you are going to that trouble (and expense), why not put the orchestra on a porous grid floor, like some old computer room floors, and use a big fan to suck the air down through the floor and out of the building. This would have been "easy" on one stage that I know about--there was a nice crawl/storage space under the stage.
Just don't sit under the horn of the tuba, the vertical flow will go right past you!
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday July 20 2022, @09:29PM
I was about to post similarly- you don't need an entire grid, but floor suction vents creating a nice downdraft would probably do the trick.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday July 20 2022, @09:18PM (1 child)
I would imagine complaints about sheet music being thrown around (never mind that you could easily replace this with tablets or some other solution).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday July 20 2022, @09:25PM
Occasionally I work in the music world and they're used to the problem. They have clips to hold the sheet music, and more and more are using large tablets.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday July 20 2022, @08:19PM (2 children)
It's that surprising rarity, a UV-C wavelength that gets absorbed too fast to cause skin cancer or cataracts and could maybe be used when people are present. What I read is that it's stopped by the outer layer of dead skin cells and the tear layer of the eye.
The interesting question is whether there's an intensity level that will kill SARS COV 2 fast enough to be useful without exceeding safety limits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21 2022, @07:37AM
I question my parents troll mod...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=222+nm+uv [duckduckgo.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 21 2022, @01:35PM
Another question is whether the UV light might do damage to the expensive musical instruments.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 20 2022, @08:24PM (9 children)
No need to worry about covid-19. So take off your masks and pretend it is all over. I could say it is all a Chinese hoax because a former US president said so.
(The BA 4 and BA 5 variants are now the fastest spreading.)
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21 2022, @01:10AM (8 children)
When you forget the /s then you get flamebaited by someone with no sense of humor.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21 2022, @02:56AM (6 children)
The rest of us are just sick of hearing about ol' 45. But DannyB just can't let it go, has to drag him into everything. It's like he's an obsessed stalker or something. Probably has a room with the walls covered in news articles with pins stuck in them and bits of colored string connecting things.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 21 2022, @04:16AM (2 children)
TDS
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-men/201901/is-trump-derangement-syndrome-real-mental-condition [psychologytoday.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday July 21 2022, @02:06PM (1 child)
Let me tell you about your own derangement.
If I were to complain about Trump, which I did not, then you are unhappy about that.
If I were to use Trump's very own words to add credibility to a claim that covid-19 is a hoax, which you should also be happy about, then you are unhappy about that.
You seem to be internally conflicted about Trump.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:04AM
You are wrong, wrong, and wrong squared. You just keep kicking a dead horse. Stop, enough already.
We (the world) have much much bigger problems to deal with. Let the past go, okay? It's been more than two and a half years. You're a bright insightful wise man- but wasting far too much of your mind and talent on living in the past. The best thing any of us can do is just let it go! Stop giving Trump press.
Talk about the very interesting new things the current govt. is passing. I'm optimistic. EV tax credits, chip-making in the US, on and on. Good stuff. Many more green initiatives. Much new promising science. Get involved, help make it happen. I am and have been.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 21 2022, @02:03PM (2 children)
I was using '45 to add credibility to the statement that Covid-19 is a hoax. You should be happy about that rather than complaining. I don't understand how you seem conflicted about '45.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @02:14AM (1 child)
Why the fuck would I be happy about that? I don't like the asshole and I'm sick of hearing about him. He might be the center of your world but the rest of us would rather he just went away.
It's people like you who are going to get him a second term in 2024. As long as you keep dragging him into everything it makes the GOP think he is still relevant. They don't care that you hate him and they don't expect you to vote for him, but they do thank you for the free publicity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2022, @07:09AM
Thank you, that's what I've been trying to say. I guess the lefties can't control their verbal output.
There's an old saying: "there's no such thing as bad publicity".
Frankly, COVID pandemic screwed everything so much it's pure hatred and idiocy to blame any one person or small group. Let's learn and move on.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 21 2022, @02:07PM
<no-sarcasm>
I did not use any tags to indicate a lack of sarcasm.
</no-sarcasm>
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...