Pandemic Dance Health

July 3rd 2020

How to dance through the pandemic—Quick Summary

• Dance on Zoom or outdoors and more than 12’ from others—OR

• Dance outdoors and wear a mask and don’t get closer than 6’.
• Bike or walk to the dance—or carpool with windows down and masks on.
• Shower and change clothes before and after.

Dance has huge physical, mental, and emotional health benefits that are especially needed right now. Want to get closer than 6’ and have more dance connection? Then you’ll need to understand more about virus transmission and up your game...read on:

Context

There is a wave train of exponential curves coming at us: COVID infections, the economic crisis, the mental health crisis...and the big one: the climate crisis. We’re in a marathon, not a sprint.

How well we make it through depends on how well we pull off these culture changes:

• Physical distancing, mask wearing, and handwashing—to reduce COVID infections
• Economic justice, mutual aid, wise investment—to ease economic hardship and political crisis
• Exercise, people connection, nature connection—for mental health; outdoor dance is perfect for this, with all three benefits in one.
• Lower carbon footprint—for climate

Need to err more on the side of safety for an exponential threat

Our brains aren’t wired to understand exponential threats. Being only half as careful doubles a linear danger, but for an exponential threat, half the caution could increase the danger ten times. The only way to keep an exponential threat from taking off is to be quite a bit more cautious than the current conditions appear to warrant. It takes about three weeks to see the effects of today’s actions, and by then infections may be raging out of control. Someone calculated that if we’d started lockdowns one week earlier in the US, it would have prevented 25,000 deaths. Finally, if measures to mitigate an exponential threat are successful, the threat will never take off and it will appear to most observers as if such measures were never warranted. <sigh>

It is hard not to be lulled by the cultural currents in the U.S. that just don’t see the need for a proactive response...but this is where this current is taking us—the worst pandemic response in the world:

We can share the benefits of dancing...w/o sharing the virus

To keep dancing during a global pandemic, we need to adapt our own actions and dance culture so we can unify, connect, meld minds and hearts, breathe, and sweat…without transmitting the virus.

This is possible.

There’s no better way to do this than to “dist-dance” together outside. Fresh air and sunshine dramatically reduce virus exposure. And the dose matters; to keep from getting infected or infecting people, you don’t need to have zero virus transmission, just less than an infectious dose. 70% of people who get the virus do not pass it on to even one other person.

If someone breathes on you before you can muster the courage to ask for more space, or if you forget and touch your face, it’s not game over—adjust behavior, go back, and do better...and we all can stay in the game.

The game is like “virus anti-tag.” The mission: get the health benefits without transmitting the virus. In Santa Barbara, the infection rate has been low, but now it's climbing, so the dress rehearsal is over. At a dance with 60 people, one or more of us will probably be infectious even though completely asymptomatic...and we don’t know who.

Visual of how exponential growth of infections is slowed:

Suggested pandemic dancer protocol

This is a work in progress

Outdoor dance with high-level care is something we could do all the way through the pandemic, without transmitting a single infection. Or, if we dance the way we did in the past, it could be a super-spreader event where one person infects thirty people. Imagine you are being interviewed by the County Public Health contact tracing team to figure out who you may have infected at the last dance. If you can’t even remember all the people you may have infected, that’s a sign you need to up your game.

If you know with certainty who you were that close to, can describe the nature and duration of the contact, can tell Public Health how to reach those people, and there are very few or zero people on that list—you are helping to enable the dance to continue. Here are some suggestions:

• Respect physical distance on the way to the dance:

• Bike or walk if possible, with a mask—over nose and mouth, or around your neck ready to put on if you pass close to people.
• if carpooling with people not in your inner quarantine bubble—know who they are and their exposures, arrange yourselves so each person has a window, wear masks, and adjust the windows for safety (brisk airflow) over comfort. (Carpooling is good for lessening the climate crisis, too.)

• Respect physical distance on the dance floor—Creatively connect hearts and minds from a safe distance. If you love someone...give them the space to be healthy:

• Masks on or ready—Everyone must have a mask either covering their nose and mouth, or around their neck ready to use. A freshly washed reusable cloth mask without an exhale valve, or a bandana, is best. Bring a dry spare if you plan to really breathe hard.^[1]
• 12’ without a mask—You need more room when breathing hard, or singing with joy—which you should be.
• 6’ with a mask.
• For closer contact with people not in your inner bubble, activate heightened awareness—This mid-level quarantine bubble is the most complicated new territory. In this pandemic, mere physical closeness with too many people can create super-spreading events and complicate contact tracing. If we get greedy for connection or don’t pay attention, dancing together in groups will likely blow up on us. But if we make good decisions, it’s sustainable.
  Get informed consent; know who you are connecting with, their exposures, and the level of their pandemic game; wear a mask; move so the wind is blowing between you; hold your breath if you pass close; dance sideways to each other so you’re close without blowing breath on each other. Share creative, low-risk ways of connecting deeply. Best to have just a few people in this middle zone, or one person. Sanitize hands and massage each other’s hands? Give hugs only at the end and go home and shower? Yeah, there’s a lot to track and figure out. When you figure out a path through the invisible minefield to deep connection...make the most of it.
• Enjoy full, carefree contact only with those in your inner quarantine bubble—such as your young children, partner, or exclusive quarantine cuddle partner.
• If you just can’t make a mask work—use a face shield, and keep more distance.

• Touch/ transference:

• Bring hand sanitizer in your pocket or pack—and don’t be embarrassed to use it.
• Shower before and bring clean clothes and mask—for consideration of others (if you are asymptomatic infected, your clothes are likely covered with virus).
• Shower after and change to clean clothes and mask—if you’ve been close with anyone.
• Don’t pass around food or objects.

• Educate, support the web of safety:

• Orient people and speak up for your safety, that of others, and the event.
• Express appreciation for safe, enjoyable interactions—to reinforce the needed cultural shift, and because gratitude is elevating
• Call out sketchy interactions—It’s a free country...but only up to the point where others are harmed, and it's the nature of the pandemic that the actions discussed here affect all of us.
• Invite feedback—It is easier to see others missteps than our own, so getting outside reflections is a gift.

• Relax and have fun, and be compassionate—We all are a bit less stable these days, and it’s a good time to be kind. And, when the stars line up to have a deep, safe dance connection, soak it up!

Suggested pandemic dance organizer protocol

• Information and buy in:

• Post on the web and email a link to the protocols beforehand—Ask for agreement as a condition of participation.
• Post signage—6’ please! For consideration of others; if you are asymptomatic infected, your clothes are likely covered with virus.
• Bring hand sanitizer and set it out for people—Ideally, use an automatic dispenser.
• Make a sign-up list for contact tracing.
• Figure out a way to communicate with people who are having a hard time getting on board—Have a team to help, ideally people with non confrontational energy.
• Share info before and after.
• Consider educational gamifying—such as dance anti-tag.

References and further reading

• 'Stealth transmission’ responsible for vast majority of cases, study says. The explosive spread of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, was driven by people whose disease was never diagnosed.
• If 80 percent of people wear masks that are 60 percent effective, easily achievable with cloth...That’s enough to halt the spread of the disease—Research shows that even a cotton mask dramatically reduces the number of virus particles emitted from our mouths—by as much as 99 percent.
• Universal mask-wearing is the most overlooked COVID-19 lifesaver—Japan has the strongest mask-wearing culture in the world and one of the lowest COVID infection rates.

• Transmission methods (video; Anthony Fauci on Trevor Noah):

• Respiratory droplets (coughing, sneezing) [2]
• Mouth to hand to mouth (handshake)
• Fomites (infected clothes, furniture, sheets, hair, skin, vehicles, tools) [2]
• Fecal-oral (ingesting infected fecal matter, flies landing on your food, touching your mouth with your hand after contact with a public door handle) [3]
• Airborne  (different from droplets; airborne virus can be carried by dust in the air) [4]

• Our Minds Aren’t Equipped for This Kind of Reopening—As states ease restrictions on businesses, individuals face a psychological morass. Individuals are being asked to decide for themselves what chances they should take, but a century of research on human cognition shows that people are bad at assessing risk in complex situations. it is too easy to focus on people making bad choices rather than on people having bad choices. People should practice humility regarding the former and voice outrage about the latter. ...Most people congregating in tight spaces are telling themselves a story about why what they are doing is okay. Such stories flourish under confusing or ambivalent norms. People are not irrevocably chaotic decision makers; the level of clarity in human thinking depends on how hard a problem is. I know with certainty whether I’m staying home, but the confidence interval around “I am being careful” is really wide. Concrete guidance makes challenges easier to resolve. If masks work, states and communities should require them unequivocally.
• One dance fitness workshop led to a whopping 112 coronavirus cases in South Korea, by way of later dance clases of 5-22 students each. More than 25% of the cases were completely asymptotic. 
• Dance Companies Take Baby Steps Back to Rehearsal—During the restrictions, the company held rehearsals outside in graveyards and beaches to afford enough space for the company’s 10 dancers to spread out, then tried experiments like dancing with a tree in place of a partner, Ms. Omarsdottir said. Some of the ideas developed during those rehearsals would be used in future...
• What Can Dancers Do If They Don’t Feel Safe Returning to the Studio?—I recently agreed to participate in a dance film shoot that is taking place outdoors, with no physical contact, proper social distancing and masks. I'm comfortable with those conditions, but I wouldn't have been comfortable participating in rehearsal or performance indoors, or without masks. Get a handle on your boundaries and hold firm.
• Dance/USA's Task Force on Dancer Health recommendations for returning to the studio
• Accurate Coronavirus Information: What's Likely to Happen, What to Do