MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal.
The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, about an hour’s drive to the south.
But Skagit County hadn’t reported any cases, schools and businesses remained open, and prohibitions on large gatherings had yet to be announced.
On March 6, Adam Burdick, the choir’s conductor, informed the 121 members in an email that amid the “stress and strain of concerns about the virus,” practice would proceed as scheduled at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.
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Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.
The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.
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Marr, the Virginia Tech researcher, said that the choir outbreak reminded her of a classic case study in the spread of infectious disease.
In 1977, an Alaska Airlines flight returned to Homer, Alaska, after experiencing engine trouble and sat on the tarmac there for four hours with the ventilation system off.
Of the 49 passengers on board, 35 developed flu symptoms and five were hospitalized. Researchers ultimately traced the outbreak to a woman who felt fine when she boarded but later became ill.
The case jolted epidemiologists into the realization that influenza could spread through the air.
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