Re-opening Procedure after Covid-19

We're pulling together resources and people from the USA, UK, AU (so far) and still looking for audio professionals in Europe or elsewhere that have experienced re-opening and can share what they are doing *as audio professionals* in dealing with a myriad of issues presented by a viral pandemic.

The consensus of our participants is that things do not look promising for a rapid return to the 'normal of 2019'.

I'm actually headed up to Emory University tomorrow to look at a research facility I consulted on for acoustics for their Mild Cognitive Impairment Empowerment Program -- from the call I had with them today, they're really digging in that social distancing is here to stay for the foreseeable future and want to take acoustical and sound considerations into their reopening plan. I'll be walking through the building with the architects and a few of their PhD students taking different acoustical measurements and we'll be looking at how they can adapt the listening and communications experience for their staff and the participants of their research study.

At first stab, we're discussing reducing noise masking levels in certain spaces, adding corrective EQ curves on sound systems and conference systems to counteract the dampening effect of people speaking while wearing masks, and possibly adding voice lift systems or swapping out absorptive ceiling tiles for reflective ones to improve speech intelligibility for group discussions in larger spaces. Speech intelligibility is taking a high priority now that everyone has to remain 6' away from each other while communicating through masks. In particular, this building is occupied by many people who have different degrees of cognitive impairment and may be elderly -- their hearing is not great as-is and masks are not making conversations any easier to conduct.

I've seen some of the live sound guys using a couple of these tricks already. Between masks and disposable socks getting put on mic's and swapped out between speakers, they're doing what they can to EQ it back to normal sounding voices.

Unfortunately in order to the do the testing I have to fly to Atlanta so I've prepared myself as best as possible for the pandemic airport experience.
 
I'm actually headed up to Emory University tomorrow to look at a research facility I consulted on for acoustics for their Mild Cognitive Impairment Empowerment Program -- from the call I had with them today, they're really digging in that social distancing is here to stay for the foreseeable future and want to take acoustical and sound considerations into their reopening plan. I'll be walking through the building with the architects and a few of their PhD students taking different acoustical measurements and we'll be looking at how they can adapt the listening and communications experience for their staff and the participants of their research study.
Cool. In situ measurement beats educated guesses.

At first stab, we're discussing reducing noise masking levels in certain spaces, adding corrective EQ curves on sound systems and conference systems to counteract the dampening effect of people speaking while wearing masks, and possibly adding voice lift systems or swapping out absorptive ceiling tiles for reflective ones to improve speech intelligibility for group discussions in larger spaces. Speech intelligibility is taking a high priority now that everyone has to remain 6' away from each other while communicating through masks. In particular, this building is occupied by many people who have different degrees of cognitive impairment and may be elderly -- their hearing is not great as-is and masks are not making conversations any easier to conduct.
The difficulty in "corrective" anything is having something to which correction may be applied. A face mask is a shelving filter that is so effective, there's little left above f3. The Alcons is already shot to hell and we're not even at the microphone yet. The amount of HF boost and what that EQ would need to "look like", spectrally, would seem to be as varied as masks and speakers themselves. I'd be interested in what you find. Perhaps it would be helpful for the grad students to demonstrate the current system while wearing their masks and if an operator is available, a couple quick games of Spin the Knobs will give a very rough idea of what EQ, by itself, may accomplish. I think that processing of inputs used for masked speaker microphones be processed *as a group* separate from inputs from video playback or music sources, with any universal corrective EQ applied to that group. Should the mask order be lifted the original input routing can be restored or the Group EQ bypassed. The eventual changes to best practices/orders would lead me to look less at architectural changes of any significant expense, but "opening up" a relatively dead room may have psychoacoustic benefits. My priority would be to minimize early reflections (as you've probably done in your initial design) and see what space above might be used for diffusion. Lowering the noise floor via changes to acoustic masking are also helpful. Squeeze out every dB of noise floor you can.

I've seen some of the live sound guys using a couple of these tricks already. Between masks and disposable socks getting put on mic's and swapped out between speakers, they're doing what they can to EQ it back to normal sounding voices.

Unfortunately in order to the do the testing I have to fly to Atlanta so I've prepared myself as best as possible for the pandemic airport experience.
The disposable socks are exactly why I advocate for separate processing... I've listened to some congressional proceedings over headphones and I really, really am over the amount of 8k - 12k that seems to have been added to most of the mic inputs. There's a whole lotta air up there... and not just from the politicians. Maybe it sounds "right" where the poor tech gets to monitor the live sound from, but on TV and video, it's a big, sibilant mess. Given a choice, though, I'd rather have mic socks than face masks but I don't think local officials will permit that.

Good luck and let us know how it sorts out, Mike.
 
I didn't know the best place to post this, but there are some interesting articles at LOOPNET concerning commercial spaces and health.
 
In a perfect world, you'd be able to test and apply EQ for a specific type of mask. I've noticed that there is quite a bit of variation in the HF frequency attenuation of different materials. Perhaps the client could standardize on paper disposables.
 
Good luck and let us know how it sorts out, Mike.

Turns out they've got some larger issues to sort through before we try to eek out a few marginal improvements by things like mask EQ's.

As part of the renovation they tore out a VAV terminal unit from a main supply duct and didn't cap it. Consequently, there's an 8" hole in their main supply duct next to their video conference room that is blowing high velocity air through a relatively small hole, causing a background noise level of NC57. Because of the LF content of airflow noise, the background noise is actually 67 dBC in that area that is constant whenever the the AHU is running -- which is almost always during the daytime. As a fairly small building, the noise from that alone is impacting about one-third to one-half of their overall occupied spaces.

They have a couple kitchen exhaust hoods that are connected to their main yoga/fitness/common area that don't have controls on the exhaust fans so the fans run 24/7 and spill noise around the area even though the kitchen is not actively in use.

A zone of the masking system wasn't plugged in, and there were masking emitters installed in areas like conference, meeting, and art therapy spaces where we recommended against having masking installed in.

Fortunately overall it will be easy to remedy most of these items, but they will have to be addressed before it's worthwhile to get into the more tweaky kinds of remedies.

It was one of the first times I've been out in public trying to communicate with people while wearing a mask as I've mostly been working from home the last 4 months. In the airport terminal I had to try hard to avoid leaning into the counter to understand what the food vendors were saying through their masks. On the plane with the engine noise going it was basically worthless trying to listen to or speak with flight attendants. As a consequence of being dehydrated, I did also discover that there's a 5-second window if you have a coughing fit on a flight where you tell yourself it's OK -- you're not actually sick -- right up until you realize you're the 2nd person bitten in any zombie movie ever where you sense everyone around you whispering about who's responsibility it is to kill you before you turn.

Also noted lots of people are wearing masks improperly. Spotted 2 cops at the TPA terminal that were wearing gaiters pulled over their mouths but down below their noses. Tonight I sat outside my local gas station for 15 minutes, where we are under a mask order -- in that time span, 2 employees wearing masks properly, 1 wearing it pulled under their chin, 1 took his off when customers left -- 5 customers wearing, 20 customers not. Overall people are not taking precautions.

In a perfect world, you'd be able to test and apply EQ for a specific type of mask. I've noticed that there is quite a bit of variation in the HF frequency attenuation of different materials. Perhaps the client could standardize on paper disposables.

Probably would be easiest to hand out masks so there's consistency between them. If it comes to implementing though and if we had to accommodate multiple mask types, I will probably play a test signal through my NTi Talkbox and try 3-4 different masks on it, Smaart a transfer function for each and without, and then split the difference between them as a starting basis.
 
In case you missed it, the Pfizer vaccine in stage 3 trials is showing about 90% protection with a test group of 40K people
having had 2 doses. Tested most likely in people like health care workers being steeped in this stuff Lower level exposure could be even better protection. This could be an out of the park moment.

Will still be next year before significant numbers are vaccinated, but
90% is so much better than the anticipated 60% in terms of statistics and disease control. It takes a lot fewer 90 per centers to be our "control rods"
in this nuclear meltdown than it would take 70 percenters. Fortunately exponents work in the inverse.. and the more places you break the chain, the better off
we all are. I have told people in our Theatre group that there will be no 2021 season.. Math is cruel.. But this is the first glimmer that we may come back in 2022.
Herd immunity... be the herd.... roll up your sleeve when you get the chance.. in the mean time herd ... take a deep breath, meditate remember Moo is just Oom backwards.
Did I mention that the CEO of Pfizer is one of mine.. a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
 
DVM? 🐴🐶🐰🐥🐃 "We're merely mammals, lets misbehave" - Cole Porter

Pfizer estimates they can have 50 million doses by the end of the year and it's a 2 dose vaccine, so 25 million people. My guess is half those will go to health care providers, first responders, nursing home staff and residents. The rest of us will stick with our masks and distancing until it's our turn. I'm not complaining, believe me. With several other firms working on their own vaccines there's a really good chance of having choices and more production capacity. Long-ish term, that bodes well.

What happens in the next 60 days determines how many production companies go out of biz.
 
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There's going to be worldwide demand for any vaccines, so being able to inject 25M people of which maybe 22M will build up an immunity is a very small number of people. Worth pointing out that this is also just a press release at the moment and no peer reviewed studies or published data is available to independently verify any of the claims.

Echoing @TimMc, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel but it could still be 9-12 months away, and at the moment the virus outbreak is exploding in areas like the Midwest so expect things to get much worse before they get better. Also expect no coherent federal guidance or resources until February.

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Covid is rising to a very dangerous level in most places across the nation right now. If an activity around people from outside your household is optional, it would be a good idea not to do it. If we all ramp up up our caution level to the maximum, maybe we can avoid further restrictions and negative, economic impacts. If we don't, the consequences will be like nothing we've seen yet. Wear a mask, social distance, and stay home.
 
Covid is rising to a very dangerous level in most places across the nation right now. If an activity around people from outside your household is optional, it would be a good idea not to do it. If we all ramp up up our caution level to the maximum, maybe we can avoid further restrictions and negative, economic impacts. If we don't, the consequences will be like nothing we've seen yet. Wear a mask, social distance, and stay home.

Just shy of 140,000 new cases yesterday alone.

My hometown in WI has stopped community testing now. The largest hospital provider in SE Wisconsin has said they are shifting resources away from drive-up testing because they need that staffing focused on providing bedside care. So if the numbers in WI start to go down, it's entirely possible the problem is still getting worse but we won't be able to tell how much worse.
 
We just canceled a filming gig we had for saturday, the $1400 we decided wasn't worth the risk. Our governor got on primetime last night begging for people to be better which (just like last time) means a new shutdown is coming in the next 1-6 days, and our local health department basically confirmed that by saying, postpone it for 2 weeks and you won't have to deal with it for awhile.

The real news though is the first time around we had 1000 cases and 200 people in the ICU statewide, this time we're at 2700 and will hit 3000 next week and have 600+ people in the ICU, no big deal.....
 
I don't know about reopening, but we won't be closing down soon. Just wanted to give people hearts that our audiences do care about theater. We just did our annual fall soiree fund raiser. It's where we present some options for next year's big musical and attendees, or in this case, viewers, get to buy voting chips to vote to decide which one. (Jerry's Girls won, BTW). Imagine, we're a 126 seat theatre in a mid-sized city, but we raised $27,000! So there's hope, boys and girls.
 

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