The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have advised members of the clergy to suspend both the administration of the chalice and physical contact during the Peace, in light of the increase of coronavirus cases.

On Wednesday morning, 387 people in England had tested positive for Covid-19. The total number of cases in the UK was 456. So far, more than 27,000 people have been tested. Six people have died, all of whom are reported to have had significant underlying health conditions.

The previous advice from Church House left it to the priest’s discretion whether to suspend the administration of the chalice and offer communion in one kind only.

A letter to all clergy from the Archbishops on Tuesday, however, said that national suspension of the administration of the chalice and physical contact was “necessary” given the increased infection rate. This puts the Church of England guidance in line with that issued this week by the Church in Wales and Scottish Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

Withhold chalice and minimise contact during worship, Archbishops tell clergy https://t.co/4vLBh9C8RS

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 11, 2020

Against a backdrop of worldwide lockdowns and economic disruptions, South Carolina hospitals are preparing for a surge in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks.

Hospitals here are erecting tents to triage potentially ill patients; they’ve set up new telemedicine programs to reduce face-to-face visits to clinics. Behind the scenes, they’ve stockpiled supplies and worked on staffing strategies, officials told The Post and Courier this week.

“We’ll see a lot of cases,” said Michael Schmidt, a professor of immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. “Some of our staff have been working day and night on this since January.”

Read it all.

Hospitals in SC are erecting tents to triage potentially ill patients and have set up new telemedicine programs to reduce face-to-face visits to clinics.

Behind the scenes, they’ve stockpiled supplies and worked on staffing strategies.https://t.co/cXFCD2vv5p

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 10, 2020

Watch the whole thing–it is very much worth your time.

Heather Utter, whose husband’s cousin was the third to die by suicide, worries that her father could be next. The longtime dairy farmer, who for years struggled to keep his operation afloat, sold the last of his cows in January amid his declining health and dwindling finances. The decision crushed him.

“He’s done nothing but milk cows all his life,” said Utter, whose father declined to be interviewed.

“It was a big decision, a sad decision. But at what point do you say enough is enough?”

American farmers produce nearly all of the country’s food and contribute some $133 billion annually to the gross domestic product….

Read it all.

In this community, three farmers died by suicide in three years. Families worry whether their loved ones could be next. https://t.co/6hC5FQSzdW

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 9, 2020

Here, courtesy of a number of scientists but mainly Ignacio López-Goñi, a professor of microbiology and virology at the University of Navarra in Spain, are what might hopefully prove a few reassuring facts about the new coronavirus:

• We know what it is. As López-Goñi wrote for the Conversation France, the virus causing cases of severe pneumonia in Wuhan was identified within seven days of the official announcement on 31 December, and, three days after that, the gene sequence was available. HIV, by contrast, took two years to identify after it first appeared in mid-1981, López-Goni noted. We also know the virus is natural, that it is related to a virus found in bats, and that it can mutate, but does not appear to do so very often.
• We can test for it. By 13 January – three days after the gene sequence was published – a reliable test was available, developed by scientists at the department of virology at Berlin’s Charité university hospital with help from experts in Rotterdam, London and Hong Kong.
• We know it can be contained (albeit at considerable cost). China’s draconian quarantine and containment measures appear to be working. On Thursday 120 new cases were reported in Wuhan, the lowest figure for six weeks, and, for the first time since the start of the outbreak, none at all in the rest of Hubei province. Several Chinese provinces have had no new cases for a fortnight and more are reopening their schools. In many countries, infections are in defined clusters, which should allow them to be more readily contained.
• Catching it is not that easy (if we are careful) and we can kill it quite easily (provided we try).

Read it all.

This is a useful @guardian piece by @jonhenley about the #COVID19 outbreak. My favorite line & an accurate one is: “It is worth remembering the world has never had better tools to fight it, and that if we are infected, we are unlikely to die from it.” https://t.co/FOKAvawC2g

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 7, 2020

“China has 31 provinces, thousands of cities,” notes Aylward. “And it was only a few cities where they took those draconian measures. In the vast majority of them, they … really went back to fundamentals of public health.”

These included ensuring that there was enough testing capacity to quickly identify cases, isolating infected patients, tracing anyone who had contact with them and, when necessary, placing those contacts in quarantine facilities so they wouldn’t get infected by the sick person or spread the disease further. Also, in places where clusters of cases were emerging, authorities prohibited mass gatherings.

“That’s how they stopped it in the areas with over 1.3 billion people,” says Aylward. “We spent two weeks on the ground looking at the data. Every other province [beyond Hubei, where Wuhan is located] had hundreds, if not thousands, of cases, not unlike the situation you see in European countries or in the U.S. These are massive provinces with tens and even a hundred million people in them.”

In short, Aylward says, “it wasn’t a lockdown everywhere. That’s the wrong way to portray China’s approach to the disease. And that’s leading to some fundamental confusion and failure to do the right things.”

Read it all.

Dr. Bruce Aylward led a fact-finding trip on COVID-19 in China for the WHO. He says it revealed that containment is possible — but that portraying the country’s approach as “lockdown everywhere” is incorrect. https://t.co/fRLe9jC6et

— NPR (@NPR) March 8, 2020

‘The coronavirus panic is dumb.” I hesitate to disagree with Elon Musk, but here goes.

The wrong way to think about the rapid spread around the world of the novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, and the disease it causes, Covid-19, is to say—as another smart and wealthy man put it to me last Monday—“Remember the H1N1-A virus of 2009? Neither do I. It infected a significant chunk of the globe, killed 20,000 U.S. citizens and we got over it pretty quickly.” He might have added that 20,000 is less than half the number of Americans who died of influenza and pneumonia in 2017.

H1N1, also known as swine flu, was a form of influenza. The reproductive number—the number of people a carrier typically infected, R0 for short—was 1.75. In the U.S., the CDC estimates that H1N1 infected 60.8 million people and killed 12,469, for a mortality rate of 0.02%

This new coronavirus—which is not influenza—appears to have a higher R0 and a much higher mortality rate. That rate is almost certainly lower than the World Health Organization suggested last week (3.4%), but it is still much higher than for H1N1. South Korea, which probably has the most accurate data given its aggressive testing regime, reports 50 deaths from 7,313 infections, a mortality rate of 0.68%. If as many Americans catch Covid-19 as caught swine flu, the death toll could exceed 440,000.

In short, Covid-19 has the potential to make 2020 much more than a bad flu season. To understand why, we need to apply more sophisticated frameworks than are being employed by most lay commentators, billionaires included….

Read it all.

Great quote from ⁦@barabasi⁩ “When it comes to the spreading of a pathogen, the epidemic parameters are of secondary importance. The most important factor is the structure of the mobility network. . ..” https://t.co/cqK8w4Xz8d

— Isaac Kohane (@zakkohane) March 8, 2020

The spread of the new coronavirus has been compared to influenza, which also causes a respiratory illness. But, as the panelists pointed out, there are no drugs or vaccines yet for treating or preventing the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, as there are for flu. In addition, we are exposed to different flu strains throughout our lives, which help us build immunity. No one had immunity to this new virus.

“We have an entirely susceptible population,” Mina said. “The potential for this to burn through a population very quickly is very high without extraordinary measures.”

As researchers race to study the virus, they are finding that it does not seem to be infecting great numbers of children, or at least making them very sick. (Experts around the globe are still trying to figure out just how broadly the infection has spread, given that many mild cases are likely to be missed.) But it is causing serious harm to older people and those with underlying diseases or weakened immune systems.

“This virus, on the one hand, there’s a saving grace that it doesn’t seem to be impacting our young, and that is amazing,” Mina said. “But the mortality rate among people who are getting infected above 80 years old is 15-plus%.”

If you plan for the disruptions that the response to the pandemic could require, it will seem less unexpected when schools are canceled or you’re told to work from home, advised panelist Juliette Kayyem, the faculty chair of the Kennedy School’s homeland security program and a former homeland security official at the state and federal level.

Read it all.

At Harvard forum, three who know warn of ‘most daunting virus’ in half a century https://t.co/uLQE8bSVaL via @statnews

— Matthew Herper (@matthewherper) March 7, 2020

Collins said she hopes to one day open a center in Fisher’s name. After going through her daughter’s phone, she saw that she wanted to get help and was apparently only taking enough drugs to not go through withdrawal.

She wishes that her daughter would’ve told her about her addiction. She said she truly believes that through them working together and her love for her newborn baby, they could’ve gotten through it.

But she wants to make sure Fisher’s story gets out so that people don’t have to go through what she went through. Losing her daughter shattered her life, she said.

“I can’t stop going, but that pain will always be there with me,” she said. “You lose a child, you really do lose a piece of yourself.”

Read it all.

Abortion rates have hit a record high in England and Wales as parents are becoming more conscious of the costs of bringing up a child.

Office for National Statistics figures show 24% of females who fell pregnant in 2018 chose a termination.

Up from 22.7% the previous year, it was the highest percentage since records began 30 years ago.

Abortion care charity BPAS suggests financial concerns are putting women off. Clare Murphy, director of external affairs, said: “We’ve seen an increasingly cautious approach, likely to be driven by factors from the two-child limit to Brexit .”

The Government’s policy of limiting welfare benefits to two children prevents parents from seeking extra funding for a third child, if born after April 2017.

Read it all.

…even I never expected full-bore death on demand to arrive in the West for another decade. I was too optimistic. A recent ruling from Germany’s highest court has cast right-to-die incrementalism aside and conjured a fundamental right both to commit suicide and to receive assistance in doing it. Moreover, the decision has explicitly rejected limiting the right to people diagnosed with illnesses or disabilities. As a matter of protecting “the right of personality,” the court decreed that “self-determined death” is a virtually unlimited fundamental liberty that the government must guarantee to protect “autonomy.” In other words, the German people now have the right to kill themselves at any time and for any reason. From the decision (published English version, my emphasis):

The right to a self-determined death is not limited to situations defined by external causes like serious or incurable illnesses, nor does it only apply in certain stages of life or illness. Rather, this right is guaranteed in all stages of a person’s existence. . . . The individual’s decision to end their own life, based on how they personally define quality of life and a meaningful existence, eludes any evaluation on the basis of general values, religious dogmas, societal norms for dealing with life and death, or consideration of objective rationality. It is thus not incumbent upon the individual to further explain or justify their decision; rather their decision must, in principle, be respected by state and society as an act of self-determination.

The court wasn’t done. The right to suicide also includes a right to assist suicide:

The right to take one’s own life also encompasses the freedom to seek and, if offered, utilize assistance provided by third parties for this purpose. . . . Therefore, the constitutional guarantee of the right to suicide corresponds to equally far-reaching constitutional protection extended to the acts carried out by persons rendering suicide assistance.

Read it all.

Sobering essay on events in Germany: https://t.co/0GArgkFKOA
“A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured”

— Ibn Maghreb (@IbnMaghrebi) March 5, 2020

A few days later, a technician in the imaging department discovered he had been infected. Sick patients began pouring in. Soon dozens of staff were sick at Zhongnan, and other Wuhan hospitals, as well.

Most days, Dr. Zhang reviewed chest X-rays, a relatively low-risk job. Some days, she’d don a hazmat suit and tend to patients herself.

Worried she might bring the virus back home, and overloaded with work, she began sleeping on an office sofa. She barely had time to eat and shower.

She figured her parents, who lived in her home, could take care of her daughter. Her husband was living and working hundreds of miles away and unable to join them after authorities announced a strict quarantine of Wuhan in late January.

Then Dr. Zhang’s 69-year-old mother admitted to feeling sick. Dr. Zhang convinced her parents to get tested for the virus. For her mother’s first visit to the hospital, Dr. Zhang had her meet nearby, so her mother could put on protective gear before going in.

Both parents came up negative using the nucleic acid test, a finicky diagnostic tool test that regularly produced false negatives. Their CT scans told a different story.

“When I saw it, I knew,” Dr. Zhang said, recalling her mother’s first chest scan. “My heart sank.” Her father, who had been reluctant to get tested, had a lung infection that turned out to be even worse, though he showed no obvious symptoms at the time.

Read it all.

First-rate @wsj reporting from the ground in China: “When I saw it, I knew.” A doctor worked nonstop on the coronavirus outbreak. Then her parents got sick. https://t.co/ixZfiG9aMS via @WSJ

— Matt Murray (@murraymatt) March 4, 2020

Anglican churches in Toronto are changing liturgical practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 ahead of the gathering of large congregations for Easter ceremonies.

Effective immediately, the Diocese of Toronto is suspending the sharing of communal cups at celebrations. It is also advising people to alter the Exchange of the Peace by sharing words and smiles only, as opposed to handshakes or hugs. In churches where holy water is used, the basin will be emptied after every service.

“Our normal liturgical customs are important to us, and we hope to reinstate them as soon as we are advised that the risk of transmission has been better contained,” the Bishop of Toronto Rt. Rev. Andrew Asbil said in a letter to the clergy and members.

Read it all.

These are some of the changes Toronto’s churches are making to protect against COVID-19. https://t.co/AiY0WZOwtJ

— CTV Toronto (@CTVToronto) March 4, 2020

First, communicate well with your church when it comes to your commitment to keep your people as healthy as possible.

This includes reminding your people that if they have any type of symptoms of coughing, sneezing, fever, nausea, achiness, or any flu-like symptom, to stay home. Remind them that you love them, but that you can see them next week if they are experiencing anything that may be contagious.

Second, reeducate your church staff and volunteers regarding good hygiene for all.

Especially those working with older and younger populations need to enforce the importance of hand-washing and good health practices with all those in your programs. Remind them that we need to be especially cautious of those who may have suppressed immune systems.

Finally, now might be a good time to (at least temporarily) modify routines that may threaten to spread disease.

For example, during the greeting time (if you have one), encourage people to simply say hello instead of shaking hands or hugging. (We used elbow bumps in our meeting this morning.) Already churches have been considering altering their practices, and it appears to be time to increase those measures just a bit.

The Surgeon General emphasized that we will know a lot more “in a week or two” on how this will play out, and in some places “large public gatherings” such as church services may have to be restricted.

However, social distancing is something that should start happening now. I specifically asked if we should be limiting church activities like shaking hands. He responded, “It is prudent to limit touching, especially hand-to-hand.”

Read it all.

US Surgeon General advises churches to “limit touching, especially hand-to-hand” @edstetzer https://t.co/hQmAv19zgH

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 4, 2020

Two patients in the Charleston area were recently screened for a potentially deadly strain of coronavirus, a hospital official confirmed Tuesday.

Lab results determined both patients at the Medical University of South Carolina tested negative for the potentially deadly virus, said MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine.

No patients at Trident Health or Roper St. Francis have been tested for the disease. Other area hospitals did not immediately respond to inquires from The Post and Courier or deferred questions to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has so far refused to disclose how many patients statewide have been tested.

Dr. Jonathan Kanoche, a DHEC medical consultant, couldn’t confirm the exact number of coronavirus tests that have been conducted in South Carolina at an information session on Monday at North Charleston City Hall, but he said the department had completed a handful of tests with no positive cases.

On Thursday, the S.C. Senate Medical Affairs Committee will huddle with DHEC officials for a briefing on the illness. On Monday, DHEC Director Rick Toomey called the spread of coronavirus “a rapidly evolving situation” and assured members of the press that his agency takes “every new infectious disease seriously.”

Read it all.

Local paper front page #coronavirus #COVID19 #health #southcarolina #lowcountrylife pic.twitter.com/ft6Ww5J3N5

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 4, 2020

CoI News: A Prayer in the Time of the Coronavirus: Archbishop Michael Jackson has issued the following prayer for those affected by and those who are shaping the response to the coronavirus outbreak. Contact Details For further information please… https://t.co/UcrRtPwUeI pic.twitter.com/XJUsfuEEbv

— Church of Ireland (@churchofireland) March 2, 2020

The Anglican church in Venice, like the other churches in the city, was not able to hold services on Ash Wednesday by order of the regional authorities, nor on the first Sunday of Lent. Nevertheless, the doors of the church were open during the times set for services so that people could use the building for private prayer. Bishop David Hamid, the lead bishop for Venice, has been in regular contact with the diocese and advice has come from it on how to administer Holy Communion, with no shaking of hands for the “peace.” Fortunately, as yet no information has emerged of a member of the church having contracted the virus, nor of anyone within the wider Anglophone community living in Venice, nor on the neighbouring mainland. At present we are in a “state of limbo” not knowing when we might be able to return to a more normal routine or what might be possible in the future. Each day carries the fear of succumbing to the virus. We are grateful for the emails of support and the offer of prayer that we have received.

What seems somewhat paradoxical is that the two churches which form part of the great panoramic view of Venice—Santa Maria della Salute, and Il Redentore—were built as acts of thanksgiving for the ending of successive plagues. On particular days each year for 400 years, and even today, Masses of thanksgiving are celebrated in these churches and popular traditions associated with those historical events observed. However, when a contemporary “plague” hits the city, a ban is issued preventing them from offering public worship. Hopefully, however, the day will quickly come when, within these same churches, a public thanksgiving will be offered for the speedy demise of the coronavirus and all who helped to combat it.

On March 2, Sims sent the following update:

The restrictive measures are in place through Sunday 8th March, with some slight variations from region to region. Religious services can be held provided people do not group together and a distance of at least a metre is kept between persons. This is a difficult criterion to meet. We have suspended all midweek activities and worship as have the Catholic and Protestant churches. We are evaluating if the criteria can be met on Sunday.

Read it all.

Chinese hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients a few weeks ago now have empty beds. Trials of experimental drugs are having difficulty enrolling enough eligible patients. And the number of new cases reported each day has plummeted the past few weeks.

These are some of the startling observations in a report released on 28 February from a mission organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government that allowed 13 foreigners to join 12 Chinese scientists on a tour of five cities in China to study the state of the COVID-19 epidemic and the effectiveness of the country’s response. The findings surprised several of the visiting scientists. “I thought there was no way those numbers could be real,” says epidemiologist Tim Eckmanns of the Robert Koch Institute, who was part of the mission.

But the report is unequivocal. “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic,” it says. “This decline in COVID-19 cases across China is real.”

The question now is whether the world can take lessons from China’s apparent success—and whether the massive lockdowns and electronic surveillance measures imposed by an authoritarian government would work in other countries. “When you spend 20, 30 years in this business it’s like, ‘Seriously, you’re going to try and change that with those tactics?’” says Bruce Aylward, a Canadian WHO epidemiologist who led the international team and briefed journalists about its findings in Beijing and Geneva last week. “Hundreds of thousands of people in China did not get COVID-19 because of this aggressive response.”

Read it all.

I have the privilege of editing the #COVID19 stories that @kakape and @sciencecohen write (at a furious pace, I might add.)

Here’s their latest, an analysis of the fascinating new report from a @WHO mission to China: https://t.co/LGH3ujXpj4

— Martin Enserink (@martinenserink) March 2, 2020

Covid-19 cases in Washington State and California appear to show that the disease has begun to spread in those communities, at least. Its spread elsewhere in the country has yet to be determined. But developments with this disease, of which there have been more than 70 cases in the United States, change quickly.

So the federal government, state and local governments, public health agencies, health care systems and industry should be preparing more actively to respond to a widespread outbreak of the virus.

Health care systems need plans to diagnose people rapidly, so those who are infected can be isolated before they spread Covid-19 to the hospital staff, or to other patients and family members. That will require setting up testing centers in clinics or in hospital locations well removed from crowded emergency departments and waiting rooms.

Up until this week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been doing all the lab testing for Covid-19. Technical challenges have slowed the distribution of this test, but now public health labs around the country have the authority to use it in their cities and states. Once there is enough testing capacity, testing should be done for anyone with symptoms consistent with Covid-19, and priority should be given to the sickest hospitalized patients.

Read it all.

How to Confront the Coronavirus at Every Level:
1. Tests need to be readied
2. Protection equipment needs to be produced
3. Medication needs to be developed.
All of this will take funding via @NYTOpinion#CoronaVirusUpdate #coronavirus https://t.co/MymM3qGw2A

— Mike Squires (@eMikeSquires) March 2, 2020

2. Physical interaction during services, including the Sign of Peace, should be suspended. Clergy may choose to give the congregation permission to carry out an alternative Sign of Peace that does not involve hand contact (e.g. a smile, nod or bow) if so wished. Shaking hands on greeting and departure at religious services/gatherings should be suspended. Observe good hand and general hygiene – thorough hand–washing with soap or sanitisers and disposal of tissues.

3. Stay at home if you feel ill and display influenza–like symptoms. The symptoms to be aware of in the case of the coronavirus include cough, shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing, and fever. Do not come to church services until you feel well.

4. The Church’s duty of care extends to members of the clergy. If you have influenza–type symptoms, do not call the clergy for pastoral visitation. Pastoral support for parishioners who are unable to attend church services should be provided by telephone or online (e.g. Skype).

Read it all.

By comparison, Covid-19 is not especially life-threatening. According to the best available data at the time of writing, there have been about 85,000 confirmed cases worldwide, roughly 94% of them in China, and 78% of them in the province of Hubei. The implied global mortality rate is 3.4%, but that is surely an overestimate, because the denominator (total cases) is being underestimated by infected people who don’t feel sick or don’t check themselves in for medical care.

We also know that, unlike the “Spanish flu” of 1918-19, Covid-19 disproportionately kills the elderly and those with existing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease. Worry about grandparents: the mortality rate for people in their eighties is above 14%, whereas it’s close to zero for those under 40.

Yet those who blithely say, “This is no worse than the flu” — which will likely cause between 16,000 and 41,000 deaths in America this season — are missing the point.

What makes Covid-19 dangerous is not so much the threat it poses to the average person’s life, but the threat it poses to economic growth. Uncertainty surrounds it because it is so difficult to detect in its early stages, when many carriers are both infectious and asymptomatic. We don’t know for sure how many people have it, so we don’t exactly know its reproduction number and its mortality rate. There’s no vaccine and there’s no cure. Last week this uncertainty, crystallised by a leap in the number of Italian cases, gave the US stock market its worst week since the great banking crisis of 2008-9.

I have often been asked in the past few years where the next financial crisis will come from. I have said, time and again, that it will come not from America but from China, now the second-largest economy in the world. Sure enough. A pandemic is very different from a bank run, to be sure, but in each case we witness the same phenomenon, which is characteristic of a networked world: a cascade of consequences driven by fear of the unknown.

Read it all (subscription).

“A Covid-19 outbreak in one or more large American cities would inflict a September 11-level hit on the US economy and a Hurricane Katrina-level hit on Trump’s popular approval.” https://t.co/mFHrDbe7eW

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) March 1, 2020

I want to hear his views on the outbreak that is happening right now: coronavirus. I wonder if we are not overreacting. After all, so far it has killed a fraction of those who die from seasonal flu.

“I’m not the scaremongering type,” he says. “But I think this is serious in the sense that we can’t afford not to consider it as a serious threat.

“It could be that, indeed, it’s going to be over in a few months,” he continues, crunching into a tempura-covered sage leaf. “But just take the counterfactual. We say, ‘OK, it’s fine and we don’t do anything.’ I bet that we would already have had far more cases in Singapore, the UK, Germany. Let’s not forget, we are already well over 1,000 deaths. That’s not a detail….”

“It’s clearly not Sars,” he continues, referring to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly one in 10 who contracted it 17 years ago. “That’s the good news. But the bad news is, it spreads much faster. The Sars virus sits deep in your lungs. With this virus, it seems that it’s in your throat and that’s why it’s far more contagious.

“Secondly, we have no vaccine. All we have is medieval ways of containment: isolation, quarantine, contact tracing.”

Piot remembers hearing about the first cases of a mysterious virus in Los Angeles in 1981. “The first report of HIV was six or seven gay men in California. Cumulatively, now we have, like, 75m people who have been infected. Who would have thought that then? Nobody. I’d rather be accused of overreacting than of not doing my job.”

Read it all (subscription).

“I’m really not a risk-taker” – Peter Piot on coronavirus & his extraordinary life in public health https://t.co/az9KGfX0LX via @financialtimes

— david pilling (@davidpilling) February 29, 2020

It may seem a strange badge of honour but, Joan Plant says, Eyam will always be proud of its plague history, especially with its reputation now resonating across the globe for communities who have cut themselves off in the face of a new virus.

“It helps to know that this horrible time our ancestors endured is making a difference today,” she says. “That is so powerful for us as a village.”

Read it all.

The sacrifice of this village between 1665 and 1666 helped contain the plague and spare the surrounding villages https://t.co/pcKy52lAbu

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 29, 2020

Pope Francis appears not to have prioritized the virus. On Feb. 23, as news of the coronavirus in Italy began receiving major coverage, the pope held a “peace summit” in Bari, where he criticized the “populist” leaders gaining power throughout Europe. Whatever one’s opinion of insurgent politicians, the comments offered nothing to address the fears of panicking Italians, who were donning face masks and emptying supermarkets. By Wednesday, the pope prayed for the disease’s victims and the medical personnel treating them, and Ash Wednesday celebrations were suspended or restricted in Italy.

Compare the pope’s response to how Cardinal Federigo Borromeo of Milan handled the black plague when it struck his archdiocese in 1630. “Be prepared to abandon this mortal life,” he said in Alessandro Manzoni’s classic “The Betrothed” (1827). “Go towards the plague with love, like a prize, as if towards another life, if a soul can be saved for Jesus Christ.” (Although the cardinal’s words are from a work of historical fiction, they reflect the reality of the time.) He invited priests to continue to provide all the sacraments even at great risk. Many clergymen answered the call, remaining in their churches and celebrating the Holy Mass amid one of the most terrifying plagues in history. Many died as martyrs serving believers who found solace in the church.

No one is urging the clergy to commit suicide-by-coronavirus. But “during the most serious time of this outbreak the pope decided to comment on the dangers of populism,” the Italian Catholic conservative writer Francesco Giubilei told me. “People of faith around the world today need spiritual direction and guidance on how to confront this crisis.”

Read it all.

My first piece for @WSJ on Italian Churches shutting down masses in the areas affected by the coronavirus. During the black plague 400 years ago, priests were ordered to continue to serve mass and many died as martyrs. A big difference from today. https://t.co/SXRheP4a1S

— Alessandra (@alessabocchi) February 28, 2020

As a dangerous new coronavirus has ravaged China and spread throughout the rest of the world, the outbreak’s toll has sown fear and anxiety. Nearly 3,000 deaths. More than 82,000 cases. Six continents infected.

But government officials and medical experts, in their warnings about the epidemic, have also sounded a note of reassurance: Though the virus can be deadly, the vast majority of those infected so far have only mild symptoms and make full recoveries.

It is an important factor to understand, medical experts said, both to avoid an unnecessary global panic and to get a clear picture of the likelihood of transmission.

“Many people are now panicking, and some actually are exaggerating the risks,” said Dr. Jin Dongyan, a virology expert at the University of Hong Kong. “For governments, for public health professionals — they also have to deal with these, because these will also be harmful.”

Read it all.

More than 80 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases are not severe, according to a large Chinese study. But mild symptoms could also make the epidemic harder to contain. https://t.co/A9JmiCFm3i

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 27, 2020

Dearly Beloved in Jesus Christ,

As you and I begin the observance of Lent on this Ash Wednesday, I want to ask you to build into your Lenten observance specific times of prayer (and fasting) asking for God’s intervention in the spread of the Coronavirus in North America and all around the world.

Read it all.

“I want to see Gafcon uniting and equipping Anglicans around the world to be a missionary movement.” -Archbishop Foley Beach https://t.co/qK1NbOJl7j pic.twitter.com/M46mVs4ixK

— GAFCON (@gafconference) May 21, 2019

The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States — but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery.

Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.

The new case in California makes it clear the virus is spreading undetected in at least one area of one state. The woman is not believed to have traveled outside the country and had no contact with a known case. As her condition worsened — she is on a ventilator — health officials in California asked the CDC to test her for the virus. Because she had not been to China and had not been a contact of a known case, the agency said no.

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.@CDCgov has broadened its testing protocol, telling healthcare providers to look for #Covid19 cases in people who’ve traveled to Iran, Italy, Japan & South Korea as well as China. Other changes too.
I’ve updated my story: https://t.co/ILiTIvTp8B

— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) February 27, 2020

If you’ve ever been suicidal and talked openly about it, you’ve probably heard someone say — maybe gently, maybe emphatically — that you should see a therapist.

But many therapists have limited training in suicide, so finding the right one can be difficult.

“A lot of people go into this thinking a therapist is going to be able to support them through these crises, and they end up coming out incredibly disappointed,” said Dese’Rae L. Stage, a suicide survivor and founder of Live Through This, a project that amplifies the voices of attempt survivors.

Whitcomb Terpening, a licensed clinical social worker and founder of The Semicolon Group, a therapy practice in Houston that works exclusively on suicide, said suicidal people tend to fall into two buckets: Those who want help but haven’t been exposed to breakdowns in the mental health system, and those who’ve tried to seek help but have been turned off by the system because of “traumatizing experiences.”

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“One of the things that I don’t think we think about is that even suicidal thoughts are on a spectrum.” – @deseraestage with @lttphoto

Here are tips that @CarterCenter Fellow @alia_e (’19-’20) gathered from experts on how to find qualified help: https://t.co/qkzHLGF4ak

— Carter Fellows (@CarterFellows) February 27, 2020

Exhausted medical workers with faces lined from hours of wearing goggles and surgical masks. Women with shaved heads, a gesture of devotion. Retirees who donate their life savings anonymously in government offices.

Beijing is tapping its old propaganda playbook as it battles the relentless coronavirus outbreak, the biggest challenge to its legitimacy in decades. State media is filling smartphones and airwaves with images and tales of unity and sacrifice aimed at uniting the people behind Beijing’s rule. It even briefly offered up cartoon mascots named Jiangshan Jiao and Hongqi Man, characters meant to stir patriotic feelings among the young during the crisis.

The problem for China’s leaders: This time, it isn’t working so well.

Online, people are openly criticizing state media. They have harshly condemned stories of individual sacrifice when front-line medical personnel still lack basic supplies like masks. They shouted down Jiangshan Jiao and Hongqi Man. They have heaped scorn on images of the women with shaved heads, asking whether the women were pressured to do it and wondering why similar images of men weren’t appearing.

One critical blog post was titled “News Coverage Should Stop Turning a Funeral Into a Wedding.”

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Beijing is tapping its old propaganda playbook as it battles the relentless coronavirus outbreak, the biggest challenge to its legitimacy in decades. The problem for China’s leaders: This time, it isn’t working so well. https://t.co/35OVxf3H51

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 26, 2020

The coronavirus almost certainly will begin spreading in communities in the United States, and Americans should begin preparations now, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a news briefing.

In the event of an outbreak, communities should plan for “social distancing measures,” like dividing school classes into smaller groups of students, closing schools, canceling meetings and conferences, and arranging for employees to work from home.

“We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad,” Dr. Messonnier said.

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The CDC warned today that it expects the coronavirus pandemic to hit the United States. It recommends making preparations. https://t.co/A2FSt4aFxf

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 25, 2020