Exclusive: Verbier Festival puts its orchestra into isolation
NewsWe have received copies of emails sent to all members of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, ordering them into strict Covid isolation.
Further tests will be administered today to all players. It is not yet clear how the festival programme will be affected. The first events are scheduled for July 16.
The email is signed by John Helyar,
Artistic Administrator, Orchestras at Verbier Festival and The Boston Conservatory
UPDATE: Verbier shrinks
It’s unfortunate that Mr. Lebrecht did not pause to gather any useful information or context in this article and instead rushed to upload a very ill-timed, trashy dig on the festival.
I hope anyone reading understands that a “covid outbreak” can mean one or two asymptomatic people. Really nothing to see here.
Kudos to the Festival for keeping the virus under control and executing a flawless gear change. À votre santé!!
Sounds like they are doing exactly what they should in the Covid era. Bravo to the festival for acting quickly, safely and professionally. Bonne Chance for the rest of the festival!
The moral is : get vaccinated !
[The moral is : get vaccinated !]
On the contrary, the moral of this story would seem to be that vaccination is not being allowed to make any difference.
Well, the delta variant can get around the vaccines to a certain extent (I believe the Pfizer vaccine is about 60-65% effective at stopping spread of the delta variant) but they are still more than 90% proof against getting seriously ill from even the delta variant. So the festival is right to impose strong measure to help stop spread, especially for the sake of those who are immunocompromised, but without vaccines the situation would be far, far worse. So yes, get vaccinated! And eventually, we hope, when enough people have been vaccinated, the virus won’t have enough places to live and will gradually die off. Or at least we won’t, in any great numbers.
Er…nothing particularly devilish about the delta variant (not sure why you are terrifying yourself over it). Over time, there is genetic drift for all viruses, making existing vaccines less effective. Eventually, the vaccine has to tweaked to more closely match the new version of the virus. This is true for the regular flu, and it will be true for Covid-19.
However, stopping the world again is not a particularly sensible response: you would have to do this every few months when each new variant appears. This is especially bonkers ince the existing vaccine will be reasonably effective for most people.