"Amateur choirs 'devastated' at Covid rule change in England"

[dutchman]

Last Monday, as lockdown restrictions eased, choir director Lucy McLean posted a selfie from her first real-life practice since October 2020



A day after McLean's emotional reunion, the government updated their guidelines, without warning, to say that amateur choirs in England could only gather in groups of six people indoors and 30 outdoors.

The decision was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Choirs had been working under the assumption that restrictions on rehearsals would be relaxed on 17 May, at the same time as shops, bars and hairdressers opened up.

Instead, the guidelines were actually more draconian than the ones in place last September and October - when infection rates were higher, and no-one had been vaccinated.

"It was absolutely devastating," says McLean, who runs four pop choirs in the north of England. "We cannot understand why this has been done."

The Association of British Choral Directors called the last-minute change "disappointing... unreasonable and unworkable".

In a statement, it said the advice "diverges from what we had been led to believe, that non-professional music activity would return outdoors and indoors in England from 17 May, without limits on numbers other than those dictated by the size of a venue," it said in a statement.

The effects are wide-reaching. Across the UK, more than two million people regularly sing in 70,000 choirs,

Voice coach Carrie Grant says the new guidelines are "unbelievably unfair" when other large-scale gatherings are being allowed in England.

"Professional singers can sing, people at sporting events can shout and yet an amateur choir have got to wait even longer to be able to get together," she says. "It's ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous.

"If you think about pubs: As it gets louder and louder and louder, there's way more aerosol being [produced] there than there would be in someone quietly singing behind a mask."