OSUMB Covid Policy and Operations

This page updates as necessary with changes in county status and institutional guidance

Updated 8/19/21

Principles, Outcomes, and Guiding Ideals

The value of the OSUMB to the university community is significant, and extends outside of the value of the group to its members. We are the flagship performing ensemble for this university. In addition to the community and school pride we represent, we carry the weight of well over a century of history and tradition into this season.

The principles guiding planning for holding the MUS153/353/553, MUS154/354/554, MUS152/352, and MUS156/356 courses are as follows, in order of priority:

  1. The health and safety of the students and staff in the ensemble

  2. The prevention of furthering community spread beyond our membership

  3. Continuation and development of the ensemble community

  4. Creation of opportunities for rehearsal and performance

The goal of structuring the 21-22 season is to operate by those four principles, while balancing three primary outcomes:

Outcome 1 - Bring the community together to begin 2021-22, and begin to re-grow the program back to an in-person organization.

Outcome 2 - Hold a season that completes performance cycles in an intrinsically meaningful and satisfying way.

Outcome 3 - Be prepared for the possibility of indoor performance during the late fall for a home Beaver basketball schedule

Everything contained in the document below is subject to change in either direction through the course of the season as conditions change.

 

Protocols

Vaccination Mandates

Our ability to hold the 21-22 band season in a reliably safe way leans heavily on the university’s vaccine program among students attending in person classes. Because of this reliance, we will not consider band rehearsal to be a public space. Visitors from outside the university population will not be allowed into rehearsal space during the 21-22 season.

Equipment

The guiding principle here is the same as it always is - every OSUMB musician will need to be self-contained for the season. As usual nobody will share instruments, uniform pieces, mouthpieces, lyres, stands, etc.

Masks

Every member of the Spirit and Sound will be issued a uniform performance mask that allows an instrument to be played while simultaneously limiting an individual’s aerosol distribution. As of this update (8/19), we will be requiring use of those in two primary situations:

  1. When we have a need to rehearse indoors. For example, if air quality measures require us to use the Truax indoor field, or for performances in Gill.

  2. When our outdoor spaces are also accessible to the public.

This represents effectively one step up from county guidance at this time, and is in line with university guidance. The masks we are utilizing are specially equipped for the task at hand, and are in uniform colors and printings. Students are of course welcome to wear theirs at any time during rehearsals at their discretion, the requirements are a floor, not a ceiling.

Testing

During the 2021-22 year, we will be reliant on the campus-wide testing protocols for information and guidance. In addition, musicians in the OSUMB will need to get a negative test through the campus system prior to embarking on bus travel.

Action triggers will come directly from that testing program and office.

Guiding References:

General SARS-CoV-2 Material

Below are just some of the increasingly-wide literature on transmission vectors of the virus. There are far too many to reference here, but two of those (Jiminez, Morawska) are here in support of what is the growing consensus in the area; that surface and droplet transmissions, while initially cited as the primary vector, are a very April-2020 understanding of the situation. The attention has been shifted toward airborne and specifically aerosol transmission.

The other reference below (Nishiura) has been a widely-cited study which reviews spreading events in the early stages of the pandemic. It suggests that transmission is over an order of magnitude less likely in an outdoor setting vs an indoor setting. This is in line with the current understanding of aerosol transmission and load buildup indoors vs outdoors.

To that end, the music profession around the world have been trying to figure out what kind of risk of aerosol transmission our various instruments and voices pose.

Music-Specific Material

The primary goal of instrument-specific research over the last year has been to determine any risks posed by various instruments in performance. The most critical finding are highlighted below:

  1. Aerosol distribution on internal wind instruments is measurable at the bell, but falls to baseline when the measuring implement was moved away from the bell. The distances where the distribution fell to baseline were all under one meter. This was found in multiple studies below: 1 meter (Miller, 22) ,0.5 meters (Brandt, 4), and 0.5 meters (Kähler, 5-6)

  2. Flutes (piccolos, in our case) provide the biggest challenge to containment of aerosols, as they distribute aerosols up to 1.88 meters (Gantner, 11). This follows intuition, as it is the only instrument where air is not being blown into a contained chamber. Rather the air is moving across the top of the mouthpiece, and then out freely into the world. They will need to utilize flute-specific masks that encase the tone-hole area of the headjoint.

  3. Interestingly, aerosol distribution increases were correlated with higher dynamic levels in straight-tube reeded instruments such as oboe, bassoon, and clarinet, negatively correlated with steep-angle impingement instruments such as flute and piccolo, and not clearly correlated in complex-chamber instruments such as bass clarinet, saxophones, and all brass instruments (He, 9)

It is important to understand that this body of research is new within the last year, and that ongoing study is likely needed to present an entire picture. However, based on what we have learned since March of 2020, it is consistent with available information to say that wind instruments (except flute/piccolo, see above) do not present any more danger of virus transmission than baseline. Wind instrument playing does not require additional restrictions beyond those imposed on the general public through local or university guidelines, which is to say vaccination mandates among the student population, outdoor priority, and potential public mitigation efforts through mask requirements.