Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Aug 1, 2024 21:29:25 GMT
Covid-19 Pauses Outer Cape Entertainment - Published July 31, 2024
Two venues canceled a week of performances in July
PROVINCETOWN — Four years after Covid-19 brought live performances worldwide to a halt, the virus is still working its will on Outer Cape arts venues.
The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on July 20 canceled its remaining showings of Reefer Madness, which had been scheduled to run until July 27, after five members of the cast and crew tested positive for Covid. Three were asymptomatic.
“In the event of a Covid-19 case in the company, we start strict testing, masking, sanitation, and isolation protocols,” Artistic Director Christopher Ostrom said. “Following the current Centers for Disease Control guidance around isolation and masking, performances were simply not possible.”
That same week, the Provincetown Theater canceled four performances of The Rocky Horror Show because of Covid. The production resumed on July 29 and is expected to run through Sept. 5.
“We are a city of entertainment, which means we congregate in groups,” said Gary Garrison, the theater’s managing director. “We pack into events where people are dancing and joyously celebrating and singing. That makes it exciting, but now that Covid is back on the landscape, that also makes it problematic.”
Garrison declined to say how many people in the company were sick last week. It was “enough for us to be concerned,” he said. “We thought it was prudent to withdraw so performers could rest and staff could reassess.”
A Summer Spike
According to data provided to the Independent by Outer Cape Health Services, which monitors weekly reports from the state Dept. of Public Health and maintains its own internal database of Covid cases, the positive test count among patients at the OCHS clinics in Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Harwich was about five times higher in July than it was in April.
“There has been a noticeable spike in Covid-19 infections this summer across the United States and locally,” said Dr. Marie Constant, medical director of the Provincetown clinic.
Constant said that symptoms of the current Omicron variants are consistent with earlier strains and include coughing, sore throat, body aches, and fever.
She said that most people experience mild symptoms, and high vaccination rates have lowered the overall risks from infection — but immunosuppressed people and those with chronic conditions remain at higher risk of complications.
In Massachusetts and 19 other states, coronavirus levels are currently “very high,” according to the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System, which monitors bacterial and viral particles in untreated wastewater.
Provincetown’s wastewater testing program ended in March due to “the exhaustion of sampling kits and the end of program funding,” according to an item in Town Manager Alex Morse’s March 11 report to the select board. The last report is still on the town’s website, although it shows data that is unusually “spiky,” or inconsistent, over time.
In Boston and its suburbs, wastewater numbers from the Mass. Water Resources Authority show a springtime decline in Covid-19 particles there, followed by a noticeable spike starting July 1.
The Cape and Islands led the state in June for the percentage of hospitalizations from respiratory illness, including Covid-19, influenza, and RSV, according to the Dept. of Public Health’s Respiratory Illness Dashboard. As of July 3, about 9.5 percent of emergency department visits in Barnstable County were due to acute respiratory disease — down from about 21 percent in January.
Current Guidance
Tracking Covid-19 as one of several respiratory illnesses reflects national guidance from the CDC, which updated and simplified its respiratory virus recommendations in March.
The agency now advises people to isolate until respiratory illness symptoms have improved and they have been fever-free for 24 hours.
For the next five days after that, people should monitor symptoms, practice good hygiene, wear a mask indoors, maintain social distance, and test themselves, the agency advises.
Free Covid-19 tests are no longer widely available on the Outer Cape, but while supplies last, free tests are available at OCHS clinics and at the community development dept. in the basement of Provincetown Town Hall.
Free test kits are not currently available in Eastham or Wellfleet, and in Truro, the last batch of free kits expired, so the health dept. is no longer handing them out.
“They’re very difficult to get,” said Gary Locke, assistant health agent in Wellfleet. “People have come in and asked us, but we just don’t have any more.”
An updated Covid “booster shot” that targets the now-common KP.2 strain of Omicron is expected to become available this fall. In the meantime, Constant said patients should consult their primary care practitioners with questions about booster shots, which are available at OCHS clinics and at the CVS and Stop & Shop pharmacies in Provincetown.
Two venues canceled a week of performances in July
PROVINCETOWN — Four years after Covid-19 brought live performances worldwide to a halt, the virus is still working its will on Outer Cape arts venues.
The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on July 20 canceled its remaining showings of Reefer Madness, which had been scheduled to run until July 27, after five members of the cast and crew tested positive for Covid. Three were asymptomatic.
“In the event of a Covid-19 case in the company, we start strict testing, masking, sanitation, and isolation protocols,” Artistic Director Christopher Ostrom said. “Following the current Centers for Disease Control guidance around isolation and masking, performances were simply not possible.”
That same week, the Provincetown Theater canceled four performances of The Rocky Horror Show because of Covid. The production resumed on July 29 and is expected to run through Sept. 5.
“We are a city of entertainment, which means we congregate in groups,” said Gary Garrison, the theater’s managing director. “We pack into events where people are dancing and joyously celebrating and singing. That makes it exciting, but now that Covid is back on the landscape, that also makes it problematic.”
Garrison declined to say how many people in the company were sick last week. It was “enough for us to be concerned,” he said. “We thought it was prudent to withdraw so performers could rest and staff could reassess.”
A Summer Spike
According to data provided to the Independent by Outer Cape Health Services, which monitors weekly reports from the state Dept. of Public Health and maintains its own internal database of Covid cases, the positive test count among patients at the OCHS clinics in Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Harwich was about five times higher in July than it was in April.
“There has been a noticeable spike in Covid-19 infections this summer across the United States and locally,” said Dr. Marie Constant, medical director of the Provincetown clinic.
Constant said that symptoms of the current Omicron variants are consistent with earlier strains and include coughing, sore throat, body aches, and fever.
She said that most people experience mild symptoms, and high vaccination rates have lowered the overall risks from infection — but immunosuppressed people and those with chronic conditions remain at higher risk of complications.
In Massachusetts and 19 other states, coronavirus levels are currently “very high,” according to the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System, which monitors bacterial and viral particles in untreated wastewater.
Provincetown’s wastewater testing program ended in March due to “the exhaustion of sampling kits and the end of program funding,” according to an item in Town Manager Alex Morse’s March 11 report to the select board. The last report is still on the town’s website, although it shows data that is unusually “spiky,” or inconsistent, over time.
In Boston and its suburbs, wastewater numbers from the Mass. Water Resources Authority show a springtime decline in Covid-19 particles there, followed by a noticeable spike starting July 1.
The Cape and Islands led the state in June for the percentage of hospitalizations from respiratory illness, including Covid-19, influenza, and RSV, according to the Dept. of Public Health’s Respiratory Illness Dashboard. As of July 3, about 9.5 percent of emergency department visits in Barnstable County were due to acute respiratory disease — down from about 21 percent in January.
Current Guidance
Tracking Covid-19 as one of several respiratory illnesses reflects national guidance from the CDC, which updated and simplified its respiratory virus recommendations in March.
The agency now advises people to isolate until respiratory illness symptoms have improved and they have been fever-free for 24 hours.
For the next five days after that, people should monitor symptoms, practice good hygiene, wear a mask indoors, maintain social distance, and test themselves, the agency advises.
Free Covid-19 tests are no longer widely available on the Outer Cape, but while supplies last, free tests are available at OCHS clinics and at the community development dept. in the basement of Provincetown Town Hall.
Free test kits are not currently available in Eastham or Wellfleet, and in Truro, the last batch of free kits expired, so the health dept. is no longer handing them out.
“They’re very difficult to get,” said Gary Locke, assistant health agent in Wellfleet. “People have come in and asked us, but we just don’t have any more.”
An updated Covid “booster shot” that targets the now-common KP.2 strain of Omicron is expected to become available this fall. In the meantime, Constant said patients should consult their primary care practitioners with questions about booster shots, which are available at OCHS clinics and at the CVS and Stop & Shop pharmacies in Provincetown.