Could the striking severity of their disease—twenty- and thirty-year-olds with covid-19 generally experience a self-limited, flu-like illness—be correlated with the amount of virus to which they were initially exposed? At least two E.R. doctors in the United States, both on the front lines of the pandemic, have also fallen critically ill; one of them, in Washington State, is only in his forties. To go by available data from Wuhan and Italy, health-care workers don’t necessarily have a higher fatality rate, but do they suffer, disproportionately, from the most severe forms of the disease? “We know the high mortality in older people,” Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist and vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN. “But, for reasons that we don’t understand, front-line health-care workers are at great risk for serious illness despite their younger age.”

Read it all.

In a 2004 study of the coronavirus that causes SARS, a team from Hong Kong found that greater exposure to the virus was correlated with a more severe illness. Could the same be true of COVID-19? https://t.co/77xYEadwlm

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 26, 2020

As COVID-19 ravages the U.S., more state and local officials are placing stringent restrictions on residents’ activities in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Two-thirds of Americans say they are following news stories about the pandemic “very closely,” with the same percentage saying the situation has disrupted their lives — either a great deal (30%) or a fair amount (36%). Nearly as many expect it to take a few more months (51%) or longer (12%) for the level of disruption to travel, work, school and public events to improve, while 36% say it will only be a few more weeks.

Read it all.

Most U.S. Adults Expect Long-Term COVID-19 Disruption https://t.co/22B9SSsNR7 pic.twitter.com/ZpUFXZvgDg

— UConn SurveyResearch (@UConnSurvey) March 25, 2020

It is very useful–check it out.

STAT has launched a new #covid19 data tracker with helpful data on case numbers by country, state, province and county. Helpful information. Check it out here: https://t.co/lxjpAXI5SE

— Adam Feuerstein (@adamfeuerstein) March 26, 2020

A generation ago, the essayist and novelist Wendell Berry told us that the great challenge of our time would be whether we would see life as a machine or as a miracle. The same is true now. The value of a human life is not determined on a balance sheet. We cannot coldly make decisions as to how many people we are willing to lose since “we are all going to die of something.”

A life in a nursing home is a life worth living. A life in a hospital quarantine ward is a life worth living. The lives of our grandparents, the lives of the disabled, the lives of the terminally ill, these are all lives worth living. We will not be able to save every life. Many will die, not only of the obviously vulnerable but also of those who are seemingly young and strong. But every life lost must grip us with a sense of lament, that death itself is not natural but is, as the Bible tells us, an enemy to be withstood and, ultimately, undone.

That means we must listen to medical experts, and do everything possible to avoid the catastrophe we see right now in Italy and elsewhere. We must get back to work, get the economy back on its feet, but we can only do that when doing so will not kill the vulnerable and overwhelm our hospitals, our doctors, our nurses, and our communities.

And along the way we must guard our consciences. We cannot pass by on the side of the road when the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and the vulnerable are in peril before our eyes. We want to hear the sound of cash registers again, but we cannot afford to hear them over the cries of those made in the image of God….

Read it all.

“A life in a nursing home is a life worth living. A life in a hospital quarantine ward is a life worth living. The lives of our grandparents, the lives of the disabled, the lives of the terminally ill, these are all lives worth living,” writes @drmoore. https://t.co/a47CB8Ki2x

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) March 26, 2020

Watch and listen to it all.

It was Friday March 13 when doctors at the largest healthcare provider in New York City decided to take the search for a coronavirus drug into their own hands. Many of their Covid-19 patients were not getting better — and some were getting worse.

Two of the hospitals’ scientists each called their contacts at US biotech companies Gilead Sciences and Regeneron to offer to test their potential treatments: an antiviral called remdesivir and an anti-inflammatory called Kevzara, developed for Ebola and rheumatoid arthritis respectively. Clinicians, researchers and regulators rushed to set up the clinical trials, which usually take months, and just four days later two patients took their first doses of the experimental drugs.

“The patients were very, very sick,” says Kevin Tracey, president of the Feinstein Institute, the research arm of Northwell Health. “Everybody just rolled up their sleeves and said we’re facing a crisis and the patients need this. After30 years of doing research, it was one of the proudest days of my life to know patients were getting treated with these drugs that may help them.”

The hospital hopes the drugs will stop the replication of the virus and reduce the inflammation in the lungs of the patients.

Read it all.

Free to read: The world cannot afford to wait 18 months to find a coronavirus vaccine. Instead, clinical trials are focusing on drugs developed for other diseases, from Ebola to malaria and arthritis, which they hope could also treat Covid-19 https://t.co/SLOdEpvSUz

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) March 26, 2020

Churches across America have managed to get around bans on public gathering by moving their worship services online, but technology provides only partial solutions.

In addition to presiding at services, religious leaders are expected to provide counseling, lead prayer groups and minister personally to people with special needs. For many, that aspect of their work has never been more important, or more difficult, at a time when communities are struggling to contain the coronavirus.

“A ‘high-five’ from across the room isn’t quite the same thing,” says Kathie Amidei, a pastoral associate at St. Anthony on the Lake Catholic Church outside Milwaukee, Wis. “If we are to be a conduit of God’s love, we have to figure out how to do that without the ways we’ve always done it.”

Some creativity is required. Faith Wilkerson, the pastor at Centenary United Methodist Church in Shady Side, Md., has been hosting a “drive-thru” opportunity each Sunday morning. Anyone with a prayer request or a desire for a blessing is invited to pull into the church parking lot. Wilkerson, assisted by lay volunteers, chats briefly at carside with the visitors and then prays with them, all the while staying at an appropriate distance.

Read it all.

“A High Five Across The Room Isn’t The Same.” Faith Leaders Seek New Approaches To Pastoral Care https://t.co/qi7zbV1Xku

— Tom Gjelten (@tgjelten) March 23, 2020

Dear Bishops, Clergy, and Christians,

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Even in the time of coronavirus and COVID-19, all blessings flow from God and we offer praise to Him because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13.8) and His mercies never come to an end (Lamentations 3.22).

Today, 25th March, the Ministry of Health has reported five more confirmed cases of coronavirus in Uganda, bringing the total of confirmed cases to fourteen. Yesterday, 24th March, His Excellency, the President of Uganda, addressed the nation and reminded all of us that Uganda can defeat the enemy of coronavirus if all Ugandans will focus on three things:

Distance yourself from people who are coughing or sneezing and reduce all non-essential travel;
Wash your hands often with soap and water;
Do not touch your eyes, nose and mouth with your hands….

Read it all.

Archbishop Kaziimba’s pastoral letter asking Ugandans to work from homehttps://t.co/4MtE1CH7ma

— Anglican Ink (@anglicanink) March 25, 2020

U. S. and European leaders are looking at China’s progress in curbing the coronavirus pandemic to guide them on how to beat the virus within their own borders.

They may be drawing the wrong lessons, doctors and health experts say.

The cordon sanitaire that began around Wuhan and two nearby cities on Jan. 23 helped slow the virus’s transmission to other parts of China, but didn’t really stop it in Wuhan itself, these experts say. Instead, the virus kept spreading among family members in homes, in large part because hospitals were too overwhelmed to handle all the patients, according to doctors and patients there.

What really turned the tide in Wuhan was a shift after Feb. 2 to a more aggressive and systematic quarantine regime whereby suspected or mild cases—and even healthy close contacts of confirmed cases—were sent to makeshift hospitals and temporary quarantine centers.

The tactics required turning hundreds of hotels, schools and other places into quarantine centers, as well as building two new hospitals and creating 14 temporary ones in public buildings. It also underscored the importance of coronavirus testing capacity, which local authorities say was expanded from 200 tests a day in late January to 7,000 daily by mid-February.

The steps went beyond what’s envisioned in many hard-hit Western cities. As a result, many doctors and experts say the recent lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe may slow the rise in new infections—if properly enforced—but still won’t be enough to stop it or prevent many hospitals from being overwhelmed, as they were initially in Wuhan.

“A lot of the lessons have been lost,” said Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. “A lockdown helps buy time: The only way it will work is if you actually backtrack and start figuring out who has the virus.”

Read it all.

There are lessons to be learned from how Wuhan got coronavirus under control. They aren’t the ones the West is heeding. https://t.co/yiqbIIRJgZ

— WSJ China Real Time (@ChinaRealTime) March 25, 2020

We both wear disposable gloves. I put my hand through the crook of his arm, and we slowly start for the clinic. The day before was one of the harder ones, with T lightheaded and nauseated most of the day, eating only if I spoon-fed him, coughing more and using his albuterol inhaler more, then coughing more again. He was soaked in sweat in the morning and by evening was lying curled up, looking apprehensive. “I coughed up blood just now,” he told me quietly.

We talked to his doctor on speakerphone. “We are all kind of working blind,” he told us. Many patients, he said, seem to begin to feel better after a week. But others, the more serious and severe cases, take a downturn, and the risks rise as the virus targets the lungs. Pneumonia is a common next step in that downward progression. We read about it in the patients admitted to the hospital. Now the doctor called in a prescription for antibiotics to the CVS pharmacy that would close in less than an hour. I texted T’s friend down the block, and he texted back that he would pick up the medicine. I asked if he would get oranges too; T has been accepting a little fresh-squeezed juice or cut-up pieces, and we were down to one last orange. They suddenly seemed an unimaginably exotic treat.

The doctor told us to go back to the clinic for a chest X-ray first thing in the morning. Now we slowly walk the three blocks, T coughing behind his mask. As we move along the street, we see some other people too — fewer than a few days ago, before Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed New Yorkers to stay indoors as much as possible. Some joggers go by. Just over a week ago, that was still me. Now I point out the buds about to bloom on the branches we pass, drawing T’s attention away from the few passers-by so we won’t see if they start or turn around. A few are wearing their own masks, but they are walking upright, striding along, using them as protection for themselves. Not like us….

Read it all.

I wrote about my family’s experience over the past two weeks as my husband has been seriously sickened by the coronavirus. This was not easy to write, but I had to: https://t.co/flNUY63O6v

— Jessica Lustig (@jessicalustig) March 24, 2020

Charleston and Mount Pleasant, two of South Carolina’s four largest cities, are soon expected to require residents to stay home, essentially closing all businesses deemed nonessential, in yet another effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. These are painful, controversial, steps, but they ultimately are justified and needed to save lives.

The decisions mean that businesses such as nail salons, barbershops and clothing stores will join public schools and colleges that already have been ordered closed. Restaurants and bars were closed last week except for take-out and delivery.

Many other businesses deemed essential, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, utilities, banks, hardware stores, construction companies, liquor stores and the news media, may remain open. People still can walk their dog or go for a jog but should make a point to stay at least 6 feet away from others.

Read it all.

Editorial: Charleston’s stay-at-home order a painful but needed step @postandcourier https://t.co/aRdDqABsBS

— Megan *Flatten the Curve* (@MeganStifel) March 25, 2020

Read it all.

Americans this past weekend stepped up their already considerable efforts to engage in social distancing in response to the novel coronavirus. Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults now say they are avoiding public places like stores and restaurants, well ahead of the 54% reporting this last week. Nearly as many (68%) are forgoing small gatherings of friends and family, up from 46%.

These shifts are notable because they suggest that the unprecedented efforts by federal, state, local and private-sector leaders to get the public’s attention — a combination of formal closures of transportation, schools, and workplaces, as well as public appeals for voluntary efforts — are working.

Even larger percentages of Americans are avoiding events with large crowds (92%) and are staying away from air travel or mass transit (87%). Most Americans were already avoiding these activities last week as businesses en masse began shuttering their doors, and widespread government and corporate travel bans took hold.

Read it all.

According to Gallup, 92% of Americans say they’re avoiding large crowds, 87% say they’re avoiding mass transit, and 72% say they’re avoiding stores & restaurants–all these numbers up from earlier this month. https://t.co/1Sra6000fD

— Nathalie Baptiste (@nhbaptiste) March 24, 2020

In his Tuesday afternoon briefing with the coronavirus task force, President Trump couched earlier comments about the need to reopen the U.S. economy within weeks, emphasizing the decision would ultimately be data-driven and made in consultation with public health experts.

The president said he still wants Americans working again by Easter Sunday, something he first said during a virtual town hall with Fox earlier in the day. But he was much more circumspect over whether that would be possible from a medical standpoint.

His previous comments about reopening the economy prompted alarm among public health experts across the country, who said it’s far too early. Trump seemed to much more carefully toe the line during his briefing as he talked about “carefully and responsibly reopening the country.”

“I want to assure Americans that we have a team of public health experts … also economists and other professionals working to develop a sophisticated plan to reopen the economy as soon as the time is right, one based on the best science, the best modeling and the best medical research there is anywhere on earth,” he said.

Trump stressed that this is a “medical crisis, this isn’t a financial crisis.”

Read it all.

President Trump on Tuesday afternoon couched earlier comments about the need to reopen the U.S. economy within weeks, emphasizing the decision would be data-driven and made in consultation with public health experts.https://t.co/r3mjI0Kf7S

— NPR (@NPR) March 24, 2020

South Carolina announced 44 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 342 cases spread across 36 counties.

The new cases include eight in Greenville County and five in Charleston County, as well as four cases each in Kershaw, Richland, Sumter and York counties.

Gov. Henry McMaster and Education Superintendent Molly Spearman jointly announced Tuesday the state’s schools would not reopen in April. Nine days ago, McMaster ordered all schools and colleges to close through March 31. The extension hasn’t officially been ordered yet, but officials wanted to give a heads up that it’s coming.

Read it all.

South Carolina announced 44 new coronavirus cases Tuesday afternoon, bringing the state to a total of 342 cases spread across 36 counties.https://t.co/HEzuMMhAEF

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 24, 2020

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement last night, it is imperative that for the health of the nation and in order for the National Health Service itself to manage the increase in those
requiring medical help, the Church of England strictly observes the new guidelines on staying at home and only making journeys that are absolutely necessary, such as shopping for essential
items and to take daily exercise.

Our church buildings must now be closed not only for public worship, but for private prayer as well and this includes the priest or lay person offering prayer in church on their own. A notice
explaining this should be put on the church door (please find template attached). We must take a lead in showing our communities how we must behave in order to slow down the spread of
the Coronavirus.

Read it all.

Here’s how one conference led to thousands of exposures to coronavirus at St. Andrew’s Church and beyond:

Thursday, March 5 to 7: Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas holds conference at All Saints Pawleys Island. Clergy and lay delegates from across South Carolina and North Carolina, plus a few from Kentucky and Tennessee, attend. About 150 people.

On the first night, clergy and spouses have dinner at an event venue in Pawleys Island. 50-60 people….

Read it all.

How one church conference led to a big spread of the #coronavirus in #SouthCarolina+beyond https://t.co/99WtJ7wkMC #covid19 #health #pandemic #contagion #religion #lowcountrylife

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 24, 2020

Q: I’m curious about some things that aren’t happening on a national scale. One is, why are shelter in place orders happening state by state? Why are we doing this sequentially? Is that a mistake?

A: No, I don’t think we could say it’s a mistake or not a mistake. There is a discussion and a delicate balance about what’s the overall impact of shutting everything down completely for an indefinite period of time. So, there’s a compromise. If you knock down the economy completely and disrupt infrastructure, you may be causing health issues, unintended consequences, for people who need to be able to get to places and can’t. You do the best you can. I’ve emphasized very emphatically at every press conference, that everybody in the country, at a minimum, should be following the fundamental guidelines. Elderly, stay out of society in self isolation. Don’t go to work if you don’t have to. Yada, yada, yada. No bars, no restaurants, no nothing. Only essential services. When you get a place like New York or Washington or California, you have got to ratchet it up. But it is felt—and it isn’t me only speaking, it’s a bunch of people who make the decisions—that if you lock down everything now, you’re going to crash the whole society. So, you do what you can do, as best as you can. Do as much physical separation as you can and ratchet it up at the places you know are at highest risk.

Q: But I heard a guy say, if you think you’re doing too much, you’re probably doing the right amount.

A: That’s me.

Q: I know it’s you. The “15 Days to Slow the Spread” campaign doesn’t mention religious gatherings. I know Pence mentioned them yesterday. But why aren’t they on the 15 days recommendations? All these other places are mentioned.

A: It was implied in no crowds of more than 10 people. But you’re right, crowds in church are important and every time I get a chance to say it, I mention it. I can’t really criticize them strongly for that at all. When you say less than 10, it makes common sense that it involves the church. I say it publicly and even the vice president has said it publicly.

Read it all.

Listen to facts of the pandemic!!! https://t.co/kRxMaPIYhR

— Larry (@Larry75982917) March 24, 2020

Gov. Henry McMaster’s office is being inundated with notices from businesses that say they want to continue operating if a shelter-in-place order is issued in response to the coronavirus, even though McMaster said he is not yet considering such an order at this time.

The notices are in response to a federal memo that broadly outlines the types of businesses considered essential to “ensuring continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national security” during a crisis, such as the current outbreak of coronavirus, known as the COVID-19 pandemic. The memo was issued Thursday by Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security office.

Those essential businesses include sectors such as healthcare, energy and law enforcement as well as transportation, public works and critical manufacturing.

Read it all.

Update: “In his most recent press briefing, Governor Henry McMaster issued an executive order authorizing law enforcement officers in the state to prohibit or disperse any gatherings of people in groups of 3 or more outside of your own home, focusing in on spontaneous gatherings and leaving the decision up to the discretion of the law enforcement officer.”

‘Essential’ businesses making their case with SC governor to remain open https://t.co/MnG6MnuEW7 via @postandcourier

— David Wren (@David_Wren_) March 23, 2020

As in-person worship services are canceled or downsized amid the coronavirus outbreak, some churches across the U.S. are bracing for a painful drop in weekly contributions and possible cutbacks in programs and staff.

One church leader, Bishop Paul Egensteiner of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Metropolitan New York Synod, said some of the 190 churches in his region were unlikely to survive because of a two-pronged financial hit. Their offerings are dwindling, and they are losing income from tenants such as preschools which can no longer afford to rent church venues.

“As much as I’d like to help them, everybody’s reserves are taking a hit because of the stock market,” Egensteiner said,

At Friendship Baptist Church in Baltimore, a mostly African American congregation of about 1,100, the Rev. Alvin Gwynn Sr. bucked the cancellation trend by holding services last Sunday. But attendance was down by about 50%, and Gwynn said the day’s offering netted about $5,000 compared to a normal intake of about $15,000.

“It cuts into our ministry,” he said. “If this keeps up, we can’t fund all our outreach to help other people.”

Read it all.

NAE President Walter Kim tells @AP: “Some changes are going to be required. The church is a very creative institution. In the end it will find ways of fulfilling its mission.” #covid19church #coronavirus https://t.co/qlbbzBBljG

— NAE (@NAEvangelicals) March 23, 2020

Facing a growing storm of criticism about his laissez-faire response to the fast-spreading coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday that he would place Britain under a virtual lockdown, closing all nonessential shops, banning meetings of more than two people, and requiring people to stay in their homes, except for trips for food or medicine.

People who flout the new restrictions, the prime minister said, will be fined by the police.

The steps, which Mr. Johnson outlined in a televised address to the nation, bring him into alignment with European leaders like President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who have all but quarantined their countries in a desperate bid to slow the outbreak.

“No prime minister wants to enact measures like this,” a grave Mr. Johnson said. “I know the damage that this disruption is doing and will do to people’s lives, to their businesses and to their jobs.”

But while these were the most draconian restrictions placed on the British people since World War II, Mr. Johnson is still leaving a bit of breathing room.

Read it all. Also, those interested may read Mr. Johnson’s full remarks there.

County and city officials around the Charleston area are urging residents to stay home if at all possible, saying the new coronavirus could spread exponentially in South Carolina if strict preventive measures aren’t taken immediately.

South Carolina officials announced 22 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, including four in Charleston County. This brings the total number of cases in the state to 195 in 33 counties.

There are two new cases each in Beaufort, Greenville, Horry, Lancaster and York counties. Berkeley, Colleton, Darlington, Hampton and Kershaw counties each have one new case, while Richland County has three new cases.

Additionally, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control is investigating a potential exposure to the virus and its related disease, COVID-19, at Wando High School.

Read it all.

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said at a news conference Sunday that businesses that aren’t truly essential should consider closing or having employees work from home, as difficult as the choice may be.https://t.co/I2SAPWF2X0

— Charleston Scene (@chasscene) March 23, 2020

Charleston’s first epidemic occurred here more than three centuries ago, in 1699, as yellow fever broke out in the new Colonial city. Butler says at least 160 people perished out of an urban population of 1,600 — a 10% mortality rate.

Even if we don’t flatten the coronavirus curve, no one expects anywhere nearly that level today. Italy, which leads the world with 4,032 COVID-19 deaths so far, has more than 60 million citizens, so its mortality rate remains very small.

Of course, Charles Towne colonists could do little to prevent that yellow fever outbreak since it wasn’t known at the time that mosquitoes transmitted the disease.

In 1738, Charles Towne saw its first smallpox outbreak, and Butler notes the mortality rate there was about 5%, as about 300 people out of the city’s 6,000 residents perished. “In 1760, it was even worse,” he adds. “The urban population was almost 10,000, and there were over 730 deaths, over 7% mortality, from smallpox. They were pretty serious events.”

At the time, there was no centralized health

Read it all.

Behre: Charleston has seen epidemics, pandemics with even more pain https://t.co/KTLHkY0Khn via @postandcourier

— Mike Mooneyham (@ByMikeMooneyham) March 22, 2020

Today, at the hospital where I work, one of the largest in New York City, Covid-19 cases continue to climb, and there’s movement to redeploy as many health care workers as possible to the E.R.s, new “fever clinics” and I.C.U.s. It’s becoming an all-healthy-hands-on-deck scenario.

The sky is falling. I’m not afraid to say it. A few weeks from now you may call me an alarmist; and I can live with that. Actually, I will keel over with happiness if I’m proven wrong.

Alarmist is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me before. I’m a board-certified surgeon and critical care specialist who spent much of my training attending to traumas in the emergency room and doing the rounds at Harvard hospitals’ intensive care units. I’m now in my last four months of training as a pediatric surgeon in New York City. Part of my job entails waking in the middle of the night to rush to the children’s hospital to put babies on a form of life support called ECMO, a service required when a child’s lungs are failing even with maximum ventilator support. Scenarios that mimic end-stage Covid-19 are part of my job. Panic is not in my vocabulary; the emotion has been drilled out of me in nine years of training. This is different.

We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us.

Read it all.

Opinion | A New York Doctor’s Coronavirus Warning: The Sky Is Falling – The New York Times https://t.co/U9AsOzSUIo

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 19, 2020

There is nothing fast-paced about the coronavirus. For months, dread has slowly accumulated in my midsection. Every day brings a succession of new anxieties about the virus and the economy; about my family and friends; about my hands and the many, many things they touch, particularly my face. Above all, there is the sense that everything that is bad today will be worse tomorrow. And the movie that best reflects that reality is not Contagion but Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

It is notable that the shark is barely in the movie, appearing for all of four minutes. This was not by design. Initially, Spielberg had three mechanical sharks made, but they looked hokey and frequently broke down. He was forced to embrace his inner Hitchcock, rarely showing the movie’s titular villain. As a result, the shark was more of an invisible threat, which turned out to be even scarier. “The visual ellipsis,” Molly Haskell wrote in her critical biography of Spielberg, “created far greater menace and terror, as the shark is nowhere and everywhere.” Sound familiar? If Jaws had been made only a few years later, we would have almost certainly been burdened with a CGI shark. Forty years after its release, the movie’s great white works as a metaphor as well as it does as a shark.

One of the strangest things about the coronavirus panic is how normal everything seems. Even with few people going out, my neighborhood looks the way it does on a Sunday morning. The difference is that I’m bombarded by a constant stream of push alerts and texts. That is a key part of what makes Jaws work. Even when everything appears fine, you know that terror is lurking just beneath the surface.

Our world is also divided between the types that Jaws establishes. There is Roy Scheider’s Sheriff Brody: apprehensive, well-meaning, but out of his depth. Then there is Richard Dreyfuss’s chatty Spielberg stand-in, Dr. Hooper: jittery, neurotic, a sudden expert on whatever topic is in front of him. The scene in which Brody, a transplanted New York cop who is afraid of boats and open water, comes home to spend the evening reading about sharks, feels particularly relevant. Set in 2020, he would be scrolling Twitter for updates—or, for that matter, watching Contagion.

Read it all.

Above all, coronavirus stirs the sense that everything that is bad today will be worse tomorrow. And the movie that best reflects that reality is not “Contagion,” but Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” https://t.co/krT1XndTVy

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) March 20, 2020

And for the record, it is NOT like flu, it is more often than not chronic pneumonia and it is killing hundreds here each day.

The head of emergency care, Dr Roberto Cosentini, says they have never seen anything like it, and he and his staff are warning other countries, especially the UK, that they will see it soon.

“It’s a very severe pneumonia, and so it’s a massive strain for every health system, because we see every day 50 to 60 patients who come to our emergency department with pneumonia, and most of them are so severe they need very high volumes of oxygen.

“And so we had to reorganise our emergency room and our hospital [to] three levels of intensive care.”

Read it all.

"It's crippling – here they call it the apocalypse."

Chief correspondent @ramsaysky goes inside a hospital in Italy battling the #coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/krTm0qhS6S

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 20, 2020

In recent days, the number of confirmed cases in New York City more than doubled to 4,408 as a blitz of testing began to reveal the rapid march of the disease, officials said. New York City alone now makes up 42% of total U.S. confirmed cases. Across the entire state, there have been 7,102 total cases and 35 deaths, making up a quarter of nationwide deaths from the illness.

With the onslaught has come a surprise for many health-care workers: Far more young people than they expected are falling very ill. According to data published Friday morning by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 56% of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the city at the time involved patients under the age of 50.

At the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, several coronavirus patients under 40, including a few in their 20s, were on ventilators in the intensive-care unit as of Thursday. All were healthy before getting the virus, said Dr. Narasimhan.

The Wall Street Journal talked to about 20 medical workers on the front lines of the outbreak at New York area hospitals.

About 90% of Long Island Jewish Medical Center beds were full Thursday after Northwell Health hospitals in recent days sent home about 2,500 patients scheduled for release and canceled elective procedures, said Terry Lynam, a Northwell Health spokesman.

Read it all.

More: “At the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, several coronavirus patients under 40, including a few in their 20s, were on ventilators in the intensive-care unit as of Thursday. All were healthy before getting the virus, said Dr. Narasimhan.” https://t.co/5zMBp8LXZF

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) March 20, 2020

The COVID-19 virus has churches scrambling. In many parts of the world, including North America, many churches have been closed to public worship. Bishops and clergy have been furiously sending out emails and instructions, plotting responses and strategizing about the days ahead. Lists of “10 Things To Do in Your Congregation” are making the rounds. From my observations, I can generalize about elements in these responses. There are outliers, of course, but not that many.

The first thing I see is the insistent call to comfort and be comforting. People are afraid and uncertain, we are told, and they need to be loved and assured. These directives are aimed mostly at clergy, but filter down from them: you can’t hug anybody anymore physically, but you should try to do it in other ways, maybe even “virtually.” Call people up; create email chains; issue little daily meditations of warmth and security. This falls into a kind of “motherly” mode. And with it comes another motherly aspect, which is the disciplinary call to behave: wash your hands; don’t get too close; obey the rules; remember that other people count; be kind; be responsible. All this represents an almost fierce maternalization of the church and especially of her leadership.

The second aspect of our moment’s ecclesial response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a corollary of the first. If bishop and clergy all become “Mom,” everybody else becomes “the kids.” Thus, with the church’s maternalization of leadership comes the Christian people’s infantilization. They’re scared, worried, need direction and hand-holding (well, only metaphorically). They also need to be told how to behave, how to be nice to others, how to organize their time well.

Read it all.

A provocative contrary view about online worship from Ephraim Radner: “When it comes to worship, we might learn to pray alone” https://t.co/5oy6vkBGdG

— Jeff Walton (@jeffreyhwalton) March 20, 2020

As the Catholic Church in the United States responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, the shock and awe of local churches suspending all public Masses for the foreseeable future draw a great deal of attention. But behind the scenes, the public health emergency has prompted additional layers of response that bring into focus how the church is intertwined with the wider society, reliant on revenue and served by people on payrolls.

“The church has a profound involvement in all this,” said Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where public Masses are suspended indefinitely though churches remain open. “Pope Francis puts it best. He wants a poor church for the poor, and it looks like his prayer is being answered.”

Wester’s archdiocese, which filed for bankruptcy in 2018, now faces the challenge shared by church administrators across the country of adopting action plans in response to the pandemic’s effects. This includes how best to support staff in chanceries, parishes and schools who are unable to come to work, possibly for months on end.

“It’s a work in progress, a fluid situation,” said Wester, who sent a personal letter to all chancery employees expressing his care and wishes for their safety. He characterized his message to them as, “Do what you need to do. … If you’re concerned, stay home.”

Read it all.

Pandemic response raises institutional stresses, new ways to be church https://t.co/Kvks7AKO3F via @ncronline

— Daniel P. Horan, OFM (@DanHoranOFM) March 20, 2020