Reopening the Bavarian State Opera Safely: Hygiene Strategies and Incidence of COVID-19 in Artistic Staff During Theater Season 2020/2021.
Simone Graf, Luca Engelmann, Olivia Jeleff Wölfler and 11 others
PMID 34906415WHAT IT FOUND
Regular testing and hygiene rules kept infection rates at the opera lower than in the wider community.
Most staff caught the virus at home, not at work. Ballet dancers had the highest risk, but no patients required hospitalization.
Key findings
01Sixty-one staff members tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 over the 48-week study period.
02The estimated 7-day incidence at the opera was lower than the average incidence in Bavaria and Germany during the same period.
03Ballet dancers accounted for the largest proportion of infected staff, with twenty-four cases.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The audience was not systematically tested, so transmission to or from spectators could not be assessed. The study period predates the dominance of the Delta variant, limiting generalizability to more transmissible strains. The cohort was relatively young and healthy, which may explain the absence of severe disease. Suspected sources of infection were self-reported and not confirmed by genomic sequencing.
Declared interests
Funded by the BMBF via the Network University Medicine. Several authors report grants, personal fees, and other support from various pharmaceutical companies (e.g., GSK, Roche, AstraZeneca, MSD) outside or during the conduct of the study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that the low incidence rate proves the hygiene measures were the sole cause of safety, as the study population was young, healthy, and the audience was not tested. Furthermore, the lack of severe outcomes may reflect the age of the cohort rather than the effectiveness of the interventions.