Coronavirus has doubled in many nations about every 3-4 days until those countries quarantine their citizens. See global #’s It is not just a health crisis, but has become a financial, educational, psychological, and emploment crisis.
Brief on severity of this virus:
- This is the first pandemic in our lifetime.
- Until 2022, experts say many nations will continue at least intermittent social distancing periods, making in-building church not a practical option. For example, “most likely, that after U.S. cases peak, Americans will still have to maintain some measures — such as isolating the infected, constant hand-washing, some degree of social distancing — until a viable vaccine is developed, which could take 12 to 18 months.” (Wash. Post 3/19/20) ~18 month timeframe also on Fox, CNN, The Hill, etc “Berkley and others estimate that it will take 12 to 18 months to develop a proven vaccine, and then even longer still to make it, ship it, and inject it into people’s arms.” https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/ Harvard researchers state “prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022.” Social distancing and no in-building church meetings will likely happen until an immunization is broadly available.
- “Honestly, I think [proving the safety & effectiveness of] the vaccine in 12 to 18 months is a moonshot.” – Tara Smith PhD, epidemiology professor. Quote link
- Until a working immunization is mass distributed, the options to remove social distancing are not reasonably attainable. 1 And even if there was mass surveillance or mass testing, in-building church meetings would still be discouraged.
- It has been on pace to have at least 1% mortality, which is at least 10-15 times the mortality of the worst seasonal flu.
- Generally, it takes 8-14 days to even see initial symptoms. During “about 4 days” to 24 days (rarer) from infection, a person can show no symptoms, but still infect others.
- “People can be infectious, meaning they can transmit the virus to somebody else, up to two days before they start showing symptoms.” 1
- Many nations do not have sufficient ventilators and ICU beds if much of the at-risk population is infected in a shorter-time span. link Masks at the hospital are being limited and kept under lock and key because the supply is low with no firm restock date. – Italian doctor calls incubators “gold’ with flood of patients. link
- This could require 48 million hospitalizations, 96 million cases actually occurring over 480,000 deaths that can occur over the next 3-7 months with this situation. (video at 1:45 minute mark) For those who recovered in China, about 14% of them have recurrence.
- COVID19 patients in ICU cannot have family around, which makes recovery harder.
- The mission is to protect the vulnerable (people over age 60 and people with chronic medical conditions such as asthma, obesity, as well as smokers/vapers). In order to do this, all people who have regular contact with them need to avoid crowds.
- “Why am I calling out churches? The answer is asymptomatic spread and aerosolization of the virus from singing. It’s been determined that this virus is much more infectious than the flu. National leaders are now saying 4.4 times as infectious, giving the epidemic a R0 value of 5.7. This probably requires other methods of transmission than from sneezing and coughing. And if approximately 50% of individuals catch this virus from asymptomatic carriers,2one must ask, how are these carriers spreading the virus? They are not coughing and sneezing. The answer is probably aerosolization, were the virus can float in the air and be picked up later by an unsuspecting passerby. The virus has been observed to survive in an aerosol form for up to 3 hours.3Thus, singing and church choirs may be the worst practice one can participate in.” 1 with update here 2 The virus can travel 13 feet in air.1
- Church meetings have spread COVID-19 in Singapore, S. Korea, France, Indonesia, and in the USA (AL 2, AR, CA 2, CO, DC, IL 2 3, KS, KY, MO, NC 2, NV, NY, VA 2 3, WA, WV and more) In Georgia, “virtually all these cases” “hotspots” link to “large church services” 2
“The priority of leaders must be to set aside confidence in their current playbook as quickly as possible, write a new one that honors their mission and the communities they serve, and make the most of their organization’s assets — their people, financial capital, and social capital, leaning on relationship and trust.” (read more)