Clean Air Club Is Organizing Musicians to Make COVID-Safer Shows and Spaces
Clean Air Club/Liz Coulbourn
Last year, Chicago resident Emily Dupree attended a concert with her partner, who caught COVID-19 at the show. While Dupree treated her sick partner and tried to avoid getting ill in their shared home, some thoughts began to form in her mind. Dupree and her partner still wore masks everywhere they went, and had adopted air purification in their home early in the pandemic to mitigate the risk of transmission. But she knew that wasn’t the case for most people.
Around this time, Dupree came across a question the father of prolific abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba used to ask her when she was frustrated: “It sounds like this is something you are very upset about. What will you do about it?” That question helped Dupree “channel a lot of despair I was feeling during the pandemic into concrete action,” she told Teen Vogue. And Clean Air Club was born.
Clean Air Club is a volunteer organization that provides free air purifiers to Chicago artists and touring musicians, so their shows are safer for the artists, audiences, and staff at the venues. The organization was launched in Chicago, but Clean Air Club and its offshoots now provide air purifiers and far-UVC lights to artists and venues in other cities.
"Your favorite performer could get Long COVID and have to shelve their entire career for an unknown amount of time. The model we have been using isn’t sustainable, thoughtful, based on fact, or safe.”
On March 1, the CDC announced a startling change to its COVID recommendations: People who test positive for the virus are no longer advised to isolate for five days and can resume daily activities if they have been fever-free for 24 hours or their symptoms are improving. Many experts have publicly disparaged these new policies, emphasizing that COVID has not become less transmissible and people can still pass it to others even if their fever is gone. Given that some guidelines for COVID safety have become more lax, the work Clean Air Club is doing to reduce transmission can feel like an uphill battle.
Research shows that HEPA air filters can reduce the aerosol concentration of COVID by 99% after 35 minutes. A 2023 paper published by the journal Viruses also concluded that far-UVC lights “can efficiently kill pathogens with potentially no harm to exposed human tissues.” (The paper distinguishes UVC lights from more common UV lights because although “ultraviolet (UV) radiation have been effectively utilized for surface sterilization,” it “cannot be used on human skin and eyes due to their harmful and genotoxic activity.”)
Though masking is also an effective mitigation strategy (especially in conjunction with other precautions), when venues use protective measures like air purifiers or far-UVC lights, it not only adds another layer of protection but also puts the responsibility of protecting people into the hands of the venue, rather than putting the onus only on individual concertgoers.
Chicago-based folk singer Kara Jackson, who has been vocal about COVID safety precautions at concerts and elsewhere since the beginning of the pandemic, has partnered with Clean Air Club to bring both far-UVC lights and air purifiers to her shows.
“I played probably 40 shows last year, and I didn’t get sick in any of my shows — knock on wood,” Jackson told Teen Vogue. “It’s not foolproof protection, but I like having the added security of something like an air purifier or a far-UVC light. I think it also sets a different precedent of, this is what shows could look like in a 'post-COVID’ world,” she added, making air quotes around “post-COVID” in reference to the ongoing pandemic.
Jackson has a point: According to reporting from NPR, musicians including experimental artist SPELLLING, punk-rock act Bikini Kill, and the American rock band Blondie, among others, have gotten sick or had to cancel part of their tour due to the virus. Canceling tours is not only devastating for artists and fans, but also a big financial hit for artists, many of whom make the majority of their living from selling concert tickets, which is all the more reason for better COVID precautions onstage.
Conversely, Clean Air Club has worked with artists like Squirrel Flower, Sen Morimoto, Hemlock, and others to spread its reach. “As a musician, I have the opportunity to create environments at my shows that look like the world I want to live in,” Ella Williams, the singer-songwriter behind Squirrel Flower, told Teen Vogue via email. “That means inclusive spaces, accessible spaces, spaces where people of all sorts can come and enjoy and experience music.”
Williams said that Clean Air Club provided her with free air filters and far-UVC lights for all her tours over the last year. She believes that all venues should have far-UVC air filtration and masks at the door to normalize COVID safety. “COVID safety doesn't have to be daunting!” she said. “Doing the bare minimum goes a long way.”
“Especially as people unfortunately get COVID, people have become more sick of [contracting] it,” said Jackson. “I’ve observed a lot more artists wearing masks while traveling, and I’ve seen more people ask audiences to wear a mask or take COVID more seriously. I think there’s a kind of brewing dialogue happening in our industry because as musicians we travel a lot and our jobs come with certain risks that we can avoid.”
This dialogue has stretched across state lines. Since the inception of Clean Air Club last year, around 22 new clean air initiatives have cropped up across the United States, Canada, and Australia. All of the lending libraries can be seen in this map created by Dupree. One such initiative is Clear The Air, an Austin-based organization that makes high-quality air purifiers accessible to artists, musicians, and organizers in the area and creates educational posts about COVID and Long COVID for anyone to use and share.
Katie Drackert, an organizer with Clear The Air, told Teen Vogue that they wanted to start a COVID-safe initiative after developing Long COVID in December 2021. After stumbling upon Clean Air Club’s work on social media, they were inspired to jumpstart Clear The Air with a local group of organizers. It felt particularly important to bring purified air to live music venues in Austin, Drackert said, a “live music capital,” home to several large festivals each year including Austin City Limits and South by Southwest.
“People love live performance art here. From music and drag to dance, there’s a show for every taste,” Drackert told Teen Vogue via email. “We must protect our local artists from getting reinfected to keep our arts economy safe and thriving. Your favorite performer could get Long COVID and have to shelve their entire career for an unknown amount of time. The model we have been using isn’t sustainable, thoughtful, based on fact, or safe.”
Being COVID-cautious in 2024 can not only be difficult and frustrating but also lonely, Dupree told Teen Vogue. She described the isolation of watching people participate in fun indoor or crowded events where you know you would not feel safe or comfortable. Ultimately, the work these clean air initiatives are doing is grounded in the idea that art and community should be safe and accessible to everyone.
To that end, Clean Air Club recently launched a poster campaign around Chicago. Each one reads: “It’s not just you. We still care about COVID, too” — a sign of solidarity for the COVID-cautious. The posters, designed by artist Liz Barr, were put up around the city by local “music makers and lovers.”
“We routinely get feedback from people who say they hadn’t gone to an indoor arts event since the pandemic began because they're disabled or immunocompromised and can’t risk it, and finally, they're able to join in such an uplifting and healing environment that art gives us,” said Dupree. “I have forged so many new relationships with people in Chicago and around the country, where I don't have to choose between my values and my desire for connection.”
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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