Beware the choristers

 Initially, in the roadmap for unlocking the second time, choirs were to be allowed to go back to rehearsing from the May 17th date. This was because, despite whatever Sharon on Facebook says, the research proved that singing is no less safe (in terms of spreading Covid) than speaking and is actually more safe than shouting. However, something weird happened and the government changed their minds. Choir directors all over the country, planning to restart their work (because it is work and not just a nice little hobby) woke up on the morning of the 17th of May to discover that things had changed. Lots of industries have been there, I know but usually the reason made some sort of sense.

Now, I would just like to point out that this is only adult choirs. Children’s groups, whatever they were up to have been allowed to meet for a while and singing has been allowed in schools from day one (unless you have a headteacher who hasn’t properly read everything and has listened to Sharon). The reason for this is that Covid doesn’t spread in schools. Children are perfectly safe and the government keeps secret any data about school transmission to prove it.

There are proven health benefits to singing in a choir but let’s ignore those in favour of persuading the oldies to stand in the park in the cold and rain with a set of kettlebells.

I’ve tried not to feel cross about this. It’s all fine. Not much longer to go. Vaccinations are going well. William Shakespeare has died of natural causes, rather than Covid, so it’s all fine. We are all going to be doing normal things soon, except Leicester, Bolton and Darwin because a conservative government just can’t work out how to help people who live in poverty and actually have no choice about staying at home.

However, the news came that Wembley stadium is going to run at full capacity for the Euros because no one ever sings at the football. Then the TV showed a dart match, where the spectators were inside, without masks (because they had a pint on the table) singing, shouting, hugging and jumping around all over the place. It’s fine though because they’ve been tested, right? They stuck a cotton bud up their own nose and self reported the test result and none of them would have done it wrong or mis-reported the result. No one who had expensive tickets to a live sporting event would ignore symptoms of illness and go anyway.

I get it. If I had to release people back into the wild slowly I would choose not to piss off the sport-loving yobs. Choristers seem much less dangerous. However, the government need to be very careful. Choristers are silent assassins. They’d drop strychnine in your tea as soon as look at you, paint arsenic on your wallpaper, coat your door handle in polonium and most have a little patch of deadly nightshade and hemlock growing in their back yard. They’ve been patient but they can’t bear injustice.

Beware the choristers!