Covid-19 is still taking its weekly toll of musicians
mainThe toll of musicians to die of Covid-19 has not abated:
256 Spanish opera site founder Mariela, 58
257 Buddy Deppenschmidt, bossa nova drummer, 85
258 Songwriter Vincent Piccariello, 61
259 Singer Claire dela Fuente, 63
260 Georgian musicologist Anzor Erkomaishvili, 81.
261 Italian baritone Giorgio Gatti, 72
262 Bert Rose, co-founder of Jamaica’s National Dance Theatre Company, 76
263 Brazilian singer Agnaldo Timóteo, 84
264 Erie Playhouse director David Matthews, 79
265 Giovanni Gastel, Visconti’s photographer nephew, 65
266 Rotterdam Philharmonic violinist Ted LeCouffe
Previous obituaries here.
Also Tamas Busa, a baritone with a fine career (mostly in Hungary). His roles included Balstrode in Grimes; Figaros in both the Rossini and Mozart; Giovanni, Guglielmo and Papageno in some other Mozart; Janos Hary in you know what; the husband in Emil Petrovics’s C’est la guerre; and many others. The virus took him at age 65, 3 months after his final stage appearance (Miller in Luisa Miller, at the Cluj National Opera).
We know that the vaccines mitigate Covid symptoms in people who do not yet have the coronavirus but we do not yet know how effective they are in actually preventing people from getting the coronavirus.
What about people who already have “long Covid”, that is, lingering symptoms; will the vaccine act as a medication to mitigate those symptoms? Also will the vaccines prevent those who already have the coronavirus but do not yet show symptoms from getting symptoms? That remains to be seen. There is some evidence to indicate that people might be most contagious before they show symptoms.
Then there are thousands of deaths of those who were never tested, especially in the early days, and whose deaths were never recorded as Covid but were indeed Covid deaths.
I have been unable to get the statistics for the New York City deaths of February, March and April of 2020 and compare them to the deaths from February, March and April of 2019 but I suspect that they will indicate that the “excess” number of deaths in those months in 2020 will be at least double the official New York City Covid death figures for those months.
Sharon,
Here’s a nurse who was there…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8290251/NYC-nurse-claims-coronavirus-patients-literally-murdered.html
The vaccine will result in people clearing Covid-19 from their system much more quickly, meaning they are less likely to spread it and they are unlikely to get seriously ill. The vaccine won’t mitigate the effect of Covid for someone who already has it (if you currently have the virus then you probably should not take the vaccine). If you recently had the virus then the vaccine will not provide any additional benefits.
Please add NY Alto Saxophonist Andy Fusco, former member of Buddy Rich BigBand, and a fixture of NY Jazz scene…