SALISBURY, England – On a recent Saturday afternoon, Margaret Drabble, 83, sat under the high arches of Salisbury Cathedral, swinging her legs back and forth under the chair like a schoolgirl.
Minutes earlier, at a stand near the entrance to the cathedral, she had received her first injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus. But that was not why she looked so happy, she said. Instead, it was elaborate organ music that gently reverberated inside the cathedral.
“Oh, I just love the organ,” said Drabble, a former professor. “It’s so beautiful it almost makes me cry every time I hear it.”
“I always wanted to play,” she said wistfully. Then, she looked at the 4,000 organ tubes in front of the cathedral and straightened up to listen. She had been instructed to stand still for 15 minutes, to make sure that she did not develop an allergic reaction.
Britain is in the midst of a mass vaccination campaign, running to prevent the virus from spreading as a new variant is discovered in the country. So far, about 6.3 million people have received the first dose, just under 10% of the population.
The National Health Service of England has signed contracts with dozens of major sites that will serve as vaccination centers. On Monday, it announced 33 new venues, including a football stadium in Oxford, several sports centers and a concert arena.
Patients have been receiving the vaccine at Salisbury Cathedral since January 16, and she hosts inoculation sessions twice a week for about 1,200 people a day. The sessions last for about 12 hours, and most of that time, David Halls and John Challenger, the cathedral organists, provide musical support, ranging from well-known hymns to melodies from fairs and euphoric classical works.
This makes the cathedral one of the few places in the country where you can hear live music now. With much of Britain under restrictions for the third time, theaters, museums and concert halls were forced to close. But in recent weeks, the British government’s rush to vaccinate its population has given some cultural sites an astonishing breath of life.
Some – like the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, in northern England, and the Hertford Theater, in northern London – have become vaccination centers, taking advantage of their large, well-ventilated spaces and their experience in dealing with crowds. Visitors now line up to receive photos, instead of looking at shop windows or singing musicals.
At least one well-known attraction in London, the Science Museum, is being considered, according to local authorities, and even circus operators have offered their big tops.
Salisbury Cathedral is, of course, a religious rather than a cultural site. But in addition to the organ’s accompaniment, anyone inoculated into the 13th-century Gothic building in southwest England can also marvel at its architecture and contemplate various works of art across its grounds, including a huge reclining figure by sculptor Henry Moore and a tapestry by contemporary British artist Grayson Perry.
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Answers to your vaccine questions
While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put doctors and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is being made, this article will help you.
Life will only return to normal when society as a whole obtains sufficient protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they will only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens, at most, within the first two months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to infection. An increasing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against disease. But it is also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they are infected, because they have only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists still do not know whether vaccines also block coronavirus transmission. For now, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid crowds indoors and so on. Once enough people are vaccinated, it will be very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we, as a society, achieve this goal, life may begin to approach something normal in the fall of 2021.
Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially be authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical tests that provided these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. This remains a possibility. We know that people naturally infected with the coronavirus can transmit it as long as they have no cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be studying this issue intensively as vaccines are launched. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to consider possible spreaders.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is given as an injection into the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection will be no different than the one you took before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines and none have reported serious health problems. But some of them experienced short-term discomfort, including pain and flu symptoms that usually last for a day. People may need to plan a day off from work or school after the second injection. Although these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system facing the vaccine and developing a potent response that will provide lasting immunity.
No. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to prepare the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slide inward. The cell uses mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any given time, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce to make their own proteins. As soon as these proteins are produced, our cells fragment the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that our cells make can survive just a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is designed to resist the cell’s enzymes a little more, so that cells can produce extra proteins from the virus and stimulate a stronger immune response. But mRNA can only last a few days at most, before being destroyed.
On Saturday, few visitors saw them, but several listened carefully to the music.
“I live in the area, and we’ve all asked, ‘Have you been to the organ recital yet?’” Said Pam Scoop, 86. “We don’t say, ‘Have you been to a jab yet?’”, She added. , using a British term for a shot. She then closed her eyes to hear Halls play Bach’s choral animator “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”.
Nicholas Papadopulos, rector of the cathedral, said he offered the building as a vaccine center as soon as he learned that a successful injection had been developed. “Our thinking was that many elderly and vulnerable people who had not been out of their homes much in the past year, if they would come,” he said, adding that the team wanted to “create an environment that is welcoming, comforting and relaxing. “
“The obvious solution was to make music,” he said.
David Halls, the cathedral’s musical director, said he started playing famous classical pieces like Bach, Mozart and Handel. He said he then decided to diversify, playing live songs like “Old Man River” and English musical hits like “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside”, in the hope that they would spark happy memories among older listeners.
“The phrase ‘soft classics’ was what came to mind,” said Halls. “We didn’t want anything too sharp, unpleasant or too fast.”
John Challenger, the cathedral’s assistant music director, said some local residents had started sending orders by email. Someone suggested a work by Australian organist and composer George Thalben-Ball, he said; on Saturday, someone else sent an email asking for a play by Olivier Messiaen, including the time they would like it to be played.
“It’s weird what people want, isn’t it?” Challenger said.
Dan Henderson, one of the doctors who oversee the center, said the cathedral is a perfect space for vaccinations, as its large and airy space reduces the risk of contracting the virus. Music was a bonus, he added, but it had a medical benefit because it lessened people’s anxiety. “It’s changing that from a medical intervention to an event,” he said, “and it really puts patients at ease.”
There was only an occasional drawback, he added. “We had patients sitting in the observation area for half an hour listening to music, when they were only supposed to be there for 15 minutes. So sometimes, in fact, it is preventing the flow of patients, ”said Henderson. “But I think it’s a lovely problem to have.”
Many visitors that recent Saturday seemed to want to stay and enjoy the music. Sue Phillips, 77, was sitting in the waiting room with her husband, William, after receiving an injection. The organists were taking a break and she seemed disappointed by the silence.
“It would be great if the organ was playing,” said Phillips. “All of these elderly people, including us, have spent a year deprived of culture, music and beauty, so we have a chance to start playing organ music.”
But soon after, the organ came to life and the familiar notes of “Jerusalem” by Hubert Parry, an English patriotic anthem, filled the space.
Phillips’s eyes flashed over the mask. “Oh wonderful!” she said. “It is magic.”
Looking at her husband, she said, “I think we’ll be another 10 minutes.”