One often wonders whether a headline is from The Onion at first glance. Then you remember, it’s 2020, Donald Trump is president, the country has become The Onion. Except this is anything but funny. It is scary.

Quite reasonably, the CDC recommended against churches allowing choirs practice or sing during the service, and limit singing amongst the congregation. This seems like the single most obvious guideline ever issued. It could have said “Please do not open and close your mouth often with deep breaths extending air out from the bottom of your lungs to spread virus” and you’d convey the exact same message as “Please, no choirs.”

You would think this was obvious as a predicate to “opening churches.”

But the CDC said the guideline had not been approved by the White House and it disappeared from the final guidelines. According to NPR:

The CDC has previously highlighted the risk of singing in choirs. Just two weeks ago, it published a report on a choir practice in Skagit County, Wash., that was deemed to be “a superspreading event.” Only one person out of the 61 people who attended the March 10 practice was known to be symptomatic, researchers said. But 53 cases of coronavirus infection were later identified.

Oh my god.

One person, choir practice, fifty-three people infected. The original guideline was already too meek. This is the original:

“Consider suspending or at least decreasing use of a choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition. The act of singing may contribute to transmission of COVID-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.”

“Consider suspending?”

That isn’t even really a guideline, but it was at least something telling people “One person can infect 53 people.”

But it’s gone, that guideline above is gone:

But that wording disappeared over the weekend, apparently because the White House had not approved it. The passage was deleted because it had been published by mistake, according to a federal official, who didn’t want to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the changes.

“CDC posted the wrong version of the guidance,” the official told NPR, adding, “The version that is currently up on the website is the version cleared by the White House.”

This is why the CDC usually speaks for itself and puts out guidelines itself. This is also why Trump insisted they say nothing and the White House will handle all messages. For shit just like this. They know that one person can infect 53 in a choir.

Yet the White House pulled the guideline. At what point does some of this become criminal negligence or reckless indifference to human life? I hope the White House officials – Trump – that made these changes realize that there is likely going to be a new group occupying the White House and DOJ next year. If the pandemic is still raging, which is more likely than not, a lot of attention is going to go to decisions like this.

It better. This is infuriating.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom