Supercomputers in Europe being used to research Covid-19 were hacked this week, according to several laboratories. Some of the computers remain offline following the attack.

Supercomputers in Switzerland, Germany, and the UK were affected. It’s not clear if the attacks were linked or who was behind them.

Supercomputers can assist in researching Covid-19 and other maladies by running simulations to study the disease’s effect on cells and to gain further insight on potential treatments.

Several affected labs said that only the login portal to the supercomputers were affected, not the machinery that runs the computations. That could mean that an attacker was seeking to breach the system in order to steal research or to disrupt the progress of researchers, according to an employee of one of the supercomputing sites, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

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Supercomputers in UK, Switzerland & Germany hacked this week; some were being used for Covid research. Perpetrator not known & unclear if incidents related. https://t.co/GlfmMePY2O by @WilliamTurton

— Ryan Gallagher (@rj_gallagher) May 16, 2020

[Dimitri ] Christakis says the serious effects of this crisis on children like Phoebe have been overlooked.

“The decision to close schools initially, and now to potentially keep them closed, isn’t, I think, taking the full measure of the impact this is going to have on children,” he told NPR. “Not just the short term, but the long term.”

The problem, Christakis says, isn’t just learning loss, which is expected to fall particularly hard on low-income children with unequal access to distance learning. Recent research from a large testing association on the “COVID-19 slide” suggests children may return in the fall having made almost a third less progress in reading, and half as much progress in math, compared with what they would have in a typical school year.

Mental health and social-emotional development, Christakis argues, have been less discussed: “The social-emotional needs of children to connect with other children in real time and space, whether it’s for physical activity, unstructured play or structured play, this is immensely important for young children in particular.” A new study in JAMA Pediatrics, he says, documents elevated depression and anxiety among children under lockdown in China.

A third major risk, says Christakis, is child abuse.

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Nightmares. Tantrums. Grief. Violent outbursts. Even suicidal thoughts.

Parents across the country shared their concerns with NPR — worried that their young children’s mental health is suffering amid the coronavirus crisis and school closures.https://t.co/YPcUmf3nHD

— NPR (@NPR) May 14, 2020

Jose Pascual, a critical care doctor at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, recalled those first, mad days treating the sick when he had little to offer beyond hunches and Hail Marys. Each new day brought bizarre new complications of the coronavirus that defied textbook treatments.

“We were flying blind,” he said. “There is nothing more disturbing for me as a doctor.”

Now, for the first time since a wave of patients flooded their emergency rooms in March, Pascual and others on the front lines are expressing a feeling they say they haven’t felt in a long time – glimmers of hope. They say they have devised a toolbox, albeit a limited and imperfect one, of drugs and therapies many believe give today’s patients a better shot at survival than those who came only a few weeks before.

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“The knowledge accumulated during the past couple of months was due not to a single eureka moment but rather a steady stream of small discoveries.”

Nice piece in the @washingtonpost on the accumulation of clinical insights on COVID-19 treatment. https://t.co/7SQehKGWwZ

— Purnima Menon (@PMenonIFPRI) May 15, 2020

Early on, virologists thought that the novel coronavirus would spread only slowly, in part due to the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and the SARS coronavirus that appeared in China in 2002. From November 2002 and July 2003, almost 800 people died of the disease, the full name of which is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. But then, the epidemic disappeared. It was a stroke of luck for humanity: That pathogen appears to have been more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, but it focused its attentions on the lungs. The virus multiplied deep within the body, making it less contagious. Furthermore, it was easy to identify and isolate those who had fallen ill from the virus.

Experts initially hoped that the same would hold true of SARS-CoV-2, but they were mistaken. The novel coronavirus doesn’t just attack the lungs. Throat swabs from patients revealed early on that the pathogen first goes after the mucous membrane in the upper respiratory tract.

That is advantageous for the virus. The distance from one throat to another throat is much shorter than the distance from one person’s lung to another. “That means that those carrying the virus are highly contagious,” says Strassburg. A huge number of the viruses are found in the nasal cavity and pharynx, “even in people who aren’t yet experiencing symptoms,” he adds, “which is why the pathogen was able to circle the globe so quickly.”

There are three stages in the attack on the human body….

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The coronavirus does much more damage to the human body than initially assumed. It can attack any number of organs and even penetrates the brain. But why do some people experience worse symptoms than others? https://t.co/yUFNxPBPg5

— SPIEGEL English (@SPIEGEL_English) May 15, 2020

I shared a room with a homeless person, a Colombian cleaner, and a man from Bangladesh—all three diabetics, incidentally, which is consistent with the known picture of the disease. The days and nights were lonely because no one had the energy to talk. I could only whisper for weeks; even now, my voice loses power in the evening. But I always had that question going around in my head: How will I be when I get out of this?

After fighting viruses all over the world for more than 40 years, I have become an expert in infections. I’m glad I had corona and not Ebola, although I read a scientific study yesterday that concluded you have a 30% chance of dying if you end up in a British hospital with COVID-19. That’s about the same overall mortality rate as for Ebola in 2014 in West Africa. That makes you lose your scientific level-headedness at times, and you surrender to emotional reflections. They got me, I sometimes thought. I have devoted my life to fighting viruses and finally, they get their revenge. For a week I balanced between heaven and Earth, on the edge of what could have been the end.

I was released from the hospital after a long week. I traveled home by public transport. I wanted to see the city, with its empty streets, its closed pubs, and its surprisingly fresh air. There was nobody on the street—a strange experience. I couldn’t walk properly because my muscles were weakened from lying down and from the lack of movement, which is not a good thing when you’re treating a lung condition. At home, I cried for a long time. I also slept badly for a while. The risk that something could still go seriously wrong keeps going through your head. You’re locked up again, but you’ve got to put things like that into perspective. I now admire Nelson Mandela even more than I used to. He was locked in prison for 27 years but came out as a great reconciler.

I have always had great respect for viruses, and that has not diminished. I have devoted much of my life to the fight against the AIDS virus. It’s such a clever thing; it evades everything we do to block it. Now that I have felt the compelling presence of a virus in my body myself, I look at viruses differently. I realize this one will change my life, despite the confrontational experiences I’ve had with viruses before. I feel more vulnerable.

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Peter Piot: “Many people think COVID-19 kills 1% of patients, and the rest get away with some flulike symptoms. But the story gets more complicated. Many people will be left with chronic kidney and heart problems. Even their neural system is disrupted…”https://t.co/FTjW8Sujhi

— Natalie E. Dean, PhD (@nataliexdean) May 9, 2020

When everything began shutting down back in March, Steve Wiens thought he would be leading church via Zoom for two, maybe four, weeks.

Members of his church, Genesis Covenant in Robbinsdale, Minn., rose to the challenge. They celebrated the Eucharist from their kitchens, with coffee and doughnuts, Capri Sun and Oreos. They divided themselves into small groups across town to keep tabs of who needed groceries or supplies.

“We’ve somehow maintained a real intimacy and sweetness because we leaned into the values that always held us,” Mr. Wiens said.

But as the weeks have turned into months, and Zoom fatigue is settling in, many church leaders are contemplating how — and when exactly — to reopen. This week, Mr. Wiens mapped out a four-stage plan of what a return to safe in-person worship might look like. Maybe by July they could worship in socially distant groups of 50, he guessed, and maybe they could lift all limits in the fall.

“That may be optimistic,” he said. “What we are doing right now will change how faith is expressed in worship, whether we like it or not.”

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After Weeks on Zoom, Churches Consider Plans to Reopen https://t.co/D3gOQZX8gk

— Herb Scribner (@HerbScribner) May 7, 2020

China has gone furthest. In 2015 it launched cips, an interbank messaging system to ease international payments in yuan. It uses the same language as swift, allowing it to talk to other countries’ payment systems. For now just 950 institutions use it—less than 10% of swift’s membership. But “what matters is it’s there,” says Eswar Prasad of Cornell University.

The real revolution is happening in low-value transfers. Like swift, the network of American card schemes is tricky to displace. Member banks and merchants trust each other because they adhere to tested rules. They also like the convenience of the schemes’ settlement platforms, which compute “net” positions between all banks that they square up at the end of the day. So rival schemes struggle to make a dent. In 2014, fearing sanctions could block it from using American schemes, Russia created its own, which now accounts for 17% of domestic cards. But its 70m tally is dwarfed by Visa and Mastercard’s 5bn. Size is not a problem for UnionPay, China’s own club. Just 130m of its 7.6bn cards were issued outside the mainland, however, where it is mostly used by Chinese tourists.

A mightier threat comes from a state-led revamp of domestic payment systems. Eager to reassert control over key infrastructure, some 70 countries have rebuilt their local plumbing to enable near-instant bank transfers at the tap of a screen. Europe is the most advanced, having fused local networks into a bloc of 35 countries and more than 500m people. South-East Asia is also trying to stitch its systems together. On March 5th India and Singapore connected theirs for the first time.

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Last year Chinese customers paid $49trn in purchases via mobile, 35 times the total in 2013 https://t.co/RGtbz28DiP

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 7, 2020

We are starting to get new data measuring the possible impact of the coronavirus situation on religious behavior in this country. Gallup’s April 14-28 survey finds 27% of Americans reporting having worshipped virtually within the past seven days. Another 4% claim to have worshipped in person, despite the coronavirus restrictions in place in most states.

The combined total of 31% who have worshipped within the past seven days either virtually or in person is roughly in line with recent, pre-virus trends. This tracks with what I reported in 2001 and 2008 — little lasting change in general worship behavior after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the beginning of the Great Recession. As was the case then, the disruptive virus situation has apparently neither expanded nor diminished Americans’ existing worship propensities.

The unique feature now, of course, is the fact that this pattern of worship behavior has stayed stable even as the way in which worship is carried out has shifted dramatically. While we don’t see a substantial change in the number of Americans who are worshipping, we do find a major shift in how they are going about it.

The 27% of Americans who say they have worshipped virtually is calculated on the base of the entire U.S. adult population. But about 20% of the population has no personal religious identity and would not be highly likely to be worshipping in any situation. Among the population of those with a religious identity, 33% have worshipped virtually.

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New data show little evidence of major change in the percentage of Americans worshipping during the virus situation, although most now worship virtually. https://t.co/jbwwFLVEx1

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) May 1, 2020

The Vanderbilt-AstraZeneca team is far from the only group trying to identify or engineer monoclonals against SARS-CoV-2. Unlike the many repurposed drugs now being tested in COVID-19 patients, including the modestly effective remdesivir, the immune proteins specifically target this virus. Whereas some groups hope to sieve a neutralizing antibody (a “neut”) from the blood of a survivor like Dr. X, others are trying to produce a neut in mice by injecting them with the spike protein. Still others aim to re-engineer an existing antibody or even create one directly from DNA sequences.

Many researchers are optimistic that antibodies will, relatively quickly, prove their worth as a preventive or remedy that buys the world time until a vaccine arrives—if it does. “We’ve got at least 50—and probably more we don’t know about—companies and academic labs that are all racing horses,” says immunologist Erica Ollmann Saphire of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, who leads an effort to coordinate and evaluate these candidates. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which developed a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies that worked against the Ebola virus—a notoriously difficult disease to treat—may be out of the gates first with a candidate monoclonal drug entering clinical trials as soon as next month.

Saphire says many questions remain. “We need a sense of the landscape: What are the most effective antibodies against this virus? If we need a cocktail of two, what is the most effective combination?” she asks. “And you might want a very different kind of antibody to prevent infection versus treating an established one.”

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Monoclonal antibodies could potentially be used both for treatment and prevention of #COVID. @WHO happy to work with developers on facilitating trials & mechanisms for affordable access.
The race is on for antibodies that stop the new coronavirus https://t.co/2vNmdFVw3l

— Soumya Swaminathan (@doctorsoumya) May 6, 2020

Pulling up short of 75,000 deaths means, in other words, an incredibly abrupt conclusion to the pandemic, with deaths going all the way to zero very soon and staying there permanently. That is not going to happen. For about the last two weeks, the country has been on a roughly flat trajectory of about 2,000 deaths per day. If it stays on that plateau through August 4, it would mean not 12,000 more deaths, but 180,000. And the pandemic wouldn’t simply end on August 4 just because the modeling does.

Of course, we may well not stay on that pace, but decline. How quickly? According to a New York Times survey of five major models, published last week, all of the models project a quite rapid decline — as rapid as the ascent was. As for how quickly that decline would begin, a model based at the University of Texas, which has won praise as an alternative to the IMHE, now says with 100 percent certainty that the country has passed its peak — this despite the fact that just on Wednesday we reached a new peak, and despite the likelihood that no more than 5 percent of the country, at most, has been exposed to the disease.

So, what is happening? Why is it that nearly all efforts to project the future shape of the pandemic seem unable to see more than a week or two into the future? And why, even in that time frame, are they almost unanimous in projecting a precipitous decline that is almost every day contradicted by the number of new deaths?

There are two big explanations. The first is that even under present conditions, in which the spread of infection is being dramatically constrained by shutdowns, the disease is not behaving as we expected.

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It’s grimmer than we want to believe. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 https://t.co/ZAtWUkUcrv

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) May 2, 2020

The metropolitan archbishops of England and Wales acknowledged the pain of Catholics who cannot receive the Sacraments because of the coronavirus lockdown in a message issued Friday.

In the message, entitled “A People who Hope in Christ”, published May 1, the archbishops said that while livestreamed Masses nourished faith, they were no substitute for public liturgies.

“None of us would want to be in the situation in which we find ourselves,” they wrote. “While the livestreaming of the Mass and other devotions is playing an important part in maintaining the life of faith, there is no substitute for Catholics being able to physically attend and participate in the celebration of the Mass and the other sacraments.”

Writing on behalf of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, the five archbishops continued: “Our faith is expressed powerfully and beautifully though ‘seeing, touching, and tasting.’ We know that every bishop and every priest recognizes the pain of Catholics who, at present, cannot pray in church or receive the sacraments. This weighs heavily on our hearts.”

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“We are deeply moved by the Eucharistic yearning expressed by so many members of the faithful. We thank you sincerely for your love for the Lord Jesus, present in the sacraments and supremely so in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”https://t.co/NE25JkXrh8

— National Catholic Register (@NCRegister) May 2, 2020

In this pandemic, when so much of our experience of the world is mediated through technology, perhaps we need to shift our mindset. Many of the same technologies we cursed months ago for driving us apart we now bless for holding us together. Families keep close through social media and mobile apps. Schools convene over e-learning platforms. Small-group Bible studies pray and praise over Zoom. The church that streams together stays together.

There are reasons for caution when it comes to the uses of technology. The glowing screen can so captivate our attention that we have little left for matters of the soul. The constant consumption of entertainment can dull the deeper senses and atrophy the musculature of the spirit. Technologies can serve in so many ways for trafficking sin or delivering death or impoverishing our years of the full height and depth of life.

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There are reasons for caution when it comes to the uses of technology. The glowing screen can so captivate our attention that we have little left for matters of the soul.

And yet, technology is a tool, and God himself gave us the gifts to devise it. https://t.co/gdVhf7ifZr

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) April 27, 2020

The fast-evolving coronavirus pandemic is posing unusual challenges in the search for drugs and vaccines, forcing researchers to rework or even scrap clinical trials as the science becomes outdated and lockdowns make study subjects harder to find.

Researchers in China this month had to shut down two studies they had hoped would examine a Gilead Sciences Inc. drug because they couldn’t find enough patients after the virus’s peak had passed. Meanwhile, researchers at Gilead and other places are opting to forgo standard tools such as a placebo arm in order to speed up trials, even though that might mean sacrificing rigor.

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Plot twist: stay-at-home orders and social distancing could make it more difficult to ensure vaccine-study subjects move around and get exposed to the virus enough to assess whether an experimental vaccine guards against infection or not, researchers say. https://t.co/E0zbqaFIEh

— Josh Jamerson (@joshjame) April 28, 2020

More than a month into virtual services, ministers are finding ways to engage with their congregants, even if services are watched in living rooms amid real-life distractions.

Online worship services can provide a sense and value of authenticity, said Alan Sherouse, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“It’s a powerful reminder about the way the holy and sacred meet the everyday or ordinary,” he said. “Those little interruptions have been a reminder that God meets us right in the midst of all these hard circumstances.”

Increased virtual ministry efforts allow congregants who are unable to attend in-person services due to work schedules, health issues and now social distancing an opportunity to participate in a worship service.

“We’ve been encouraged to see that the people we have been wondering about are really loving to be connected to the church through online worship instead of in a sanctuary,” Sherouse said.

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Mr. Bello’s cataclysmic spiral from avid skier, cyclist and runner to grievously ill patient — and the heartbreaking and triumphant twists in doctors’ relentless efforts to save him — underscores the agonizing challenges confronting even highly trained physicians and well-equipped hospitals battling a ferociously capricious virus.

Hospitals have never before had, simultaneously, so many patients so sick that their lungs have basically stopped functioning. And while doctors are experienced at treating similar respiratory failure, the path of patients with Covid-19 can be maddeningly unpredictable.

“It’s like they fall off a cliff,” said Dr. Peggy Lai, a critical care doctor at Mass General. “You see young patients getting sicker and sicker by the day despite everything that you know is good standard of care.”

Without proven therapies to extinguish the infection, doctors ride roller-coasters of trial and error. They weigh risks of uncertain treatments and painstakingly adjust machines in hopes of shoring up patients’ lungs enough that their bodies clear the inflammation and heal.

“The tricky part with this disease,” Dr. Lai said, “is that we have nothing to follow, to know what predicts how sick someone will be and what predicts them getting better.”

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A man went from athletic and healthy to gravely ill. The twists in doctors’ efforts to save him highlight the agonizing mysteries of the coronavirus.https://t.co/TgPmXDhBaa

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

Abel León dreaded saying goodbye to his mother, Josefina León. Last month, Mr. León and his sister quietly celebrated their mother’s 70th birthday in Springfield, Ill. Mr. León, 44, who lives in Chicago, wasn’t sure when he would see his mother again amid social distancing. To prolong their goodbye, Mr. León suggested they say a rosary, a prayer that his mother has said every day for years.

“I saw how much that seemed to give her some peace,” Mr. León says. Then inspiration struck. “I said, ‘you know mom, we could stay in touch doing rosaries.’’’

The following evening, March 16, Mr. León and his three siblings joined their mother on a video conference to begin their new daily practice of saying the rosary, following along with a string of beads that represent the cycle of prayers. “This was a way we could just check in and be together as a family,” says Mr. León. “Mom is a widow and everyone worries about her.”

As word spread throughout Mr. León’s large extended family—his mother is one of 12 siblings—the rosary video-call quickly grew to include relatives spanning Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, California, North Carolina and Mexico. Mr. León, who works as a corporate-compliance investigator, offers the group technical support. Since his relatives are familiar with different video-conferencing services, Mr. León props up his iPad in front of his laptop screen, allowing people calling in through different services to see each other. “They can definitely all hear each other so it ends up working out,” he says.

It takes around 15 minutes for a critical mass of people to join the call at 8 p.m.

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On a recent Sunday night, some 25 members of Abel León’s family dialed in to pray the rosary together https://t.co/DpCNRPi62j

— Jorge Luis Lopez Esq (@lopezgovlaw) April 22, 2020

Tucked on a short rural street in McClellanville, Greater Howard Chapel is used to seeing about 125 members on a Sunday.

But amid the coronavirus pandemic, the AME congregation is reaching hundreds, if not thousands, more through its online services.

An Easter drive-in worship experience welcomed members who parked cars on a grassy lot as they listened to songs from musicians and a message from the Rev. Leondra Stoney.

About 300 people had tuned in to watch the service live via the church’s Facebook page. By mid-week, the video had more than 7,000 views.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting it,” said Stoney, who noted she was more focused during Resurrection Sunday on drive-in logistics, such as maintaining internet access in the rural area.

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Some South Carolina religious institutions are reaching more people through online worship experiences than they did when members sat in the pews.https://t.co/QKzZ2oBcT7

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 21, 2020

Also on the practical side, coronavirus and social distancing measures have brought about significant restrictions to funeral services which will affect bereaved relatives’ ability to mourn. But many funeral directors are doing everything they can to help.

There are online resources on how to organise funerals during the coronavirus crisis which are meaningful for both adults and children. Guidance on religious funerals in the context of COVID-19 is available from the official sites of the Church of England, the Catholic Church for England and Wales, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Jewish Joint Burial Society.

Ways to bring in others who are not there in person include live streaming or recording facilities and circulating the order of service, music and poems. People who are bereaved over the coming months might want to organise a simple service at this stage and arrange a memorial or celebration service later. It is important to bring people together to remember and celebrate the person who has died, even if that occasion has to be delayed.

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Grief has been turned upside down during #COVID19 – we need to support bereaved relatives to avoid a host of mental health problems down the line. A piece I wrote for @ConversationUK is now online https://t.co/0gQBbggwT2 @capcbristol @BristolUni #pallicovid #comcomcovid

— Lucy Selman (@Lucy_Selman) April 17, 2020

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings in the name of our Risen Lord!

As we continue this journey through the Covid-19 Quarantine, we do so walking with the Risen Christ more fully into Easter, the Great Fifty Days. I pray we can walk in joy and on the right side of Easter. The French writer Louis Evely observed that the disciples before meeting the risen Jesus “were sad because they believed he was dead—and we [too often] are sad even though we believe that he is alive.”

We continue to make this journey with our people in a time of unusual uncertainty: uncertainties regarding the novel coronavirus with confusing, seemingly contradictory statistics, predictions, and interpretations of where we are in this unfolding crisis both as a nation and as South Carolinians; uncertainties also about the flattened economy and of how a financial depression will affect our people and our congregations. Hardly a deanery clericus zoom conference ends without the question being asked just when I think we will be back in our buildings. My answer continues to be that the medical and social state is fluid and it is not realistic for me to predict an answer at this time. My commitment to you is that I will continue to keep in regular communication with you regarding this and other developments and attempt to give you advance notice whenever I can.

For now, we continue to be out of our buildings for public worship. That means for most of you the online services are the primary means of congregational worship. I am however permitting those who believe it will be beneficial for their people the opportunity to administer the pre-consecrated sacrament. Please note this is permissible not required.

In many of our larger congregations, the logistics of offering the sacrament in this manner may only add to the burdens of ministry and therefore will not be helpful or even advisable at this time. Indeed, many of our larger congregations will choose to wait and continue with the present methods of ministry. This may be true for smaller congregations as well particularly where the priest is in the immune sensitive category. Others may find it a welcome “loosening” of a prior restriction.

One final observation for us all. As our nation moves into state and regional models of reopening, we may well be faced as a diocese in realizing that “one size” or model of adapting and reopening will not do for all, at least for all at the same time. I will do my best to protect our unity even as we may not have complete uniformity in the timeline. This may be but one early example. Realistically, of course, all should understand that this has already happened in the shutdown and even continues. Some of our smaller congregations were not able to adapt as quickly or as well as our larger churches to the online worship service models. Frankly, they had the hardest time hearing my Episcopal Directive in closing their churches particularly as attendance isn’t much larger than what others have in order to do a live online service.

Now, for those who are planning to offer the pre-consecrated sacrament to your people these are my directives and recommendations. I will want to have a conference call with those who choose to distribute the sacrament on April 26 early in that week to learn from your experience. We will then evaluate this moving forward.

Directives. The first Sunday this is permitted will be April 26, 2020. You will need to consecrate the bread and, where in prepackaged individual cups, the wine well in advance of the Sunday worship. If you have not already purchased the individual cups, please do not try to construct or assemble your own. Also, please recognize this is not an abandonment of the common cup. It is a temporary allowance for our current crisis. If you do not have the pre-packaged sealed hosts, you will need to package this in sealable plastic bags. You or those doing this shall have thoroughly washed their hands and used disinfectant (and if you so choose, plastic gloves). However, the gloves do not make up for washing with soup and water. Please also use facemasks when packaging. How you distribute this to your people will be determined by your local systems but please instruct those involved to use every precaution of recommended social distancing.

Recommendations: Those parishioners who receive the sacrament should store the sacrament in a respectful place in their home perhaps placing it in a vessel and then putting it in a china cabinet or other respectful, protected place. On the Sunday of the communion, they should place the sacrament on a plate removing the bread from the prepackaged wrap or plastic bag prior to the service. Creating a reverent atmosphere is encouraged. After participating in the online service—the gospel read and preached, creed, confession and absolution, words of institution and Lord’s Prayer, the priest leading the service and the parishioners at home will receive the sacrament. For those who will be viewing the service but without the sacrament please include the prayer for “Spiritual Communion” as a means of including everyone. You may have parishioners participate who choose not to receive the preconsecrated sacrament, who live in a retirement community, or out of town and are viewing your worship service.

Drive by pickup for same Sunday Communion. As you know from the Deanery Zoom calls I’m less sanguine about this but should you choose to do it on the Sunday of April 26 you will need to allow for sufficient time after the service concludes to package the host for distribution for those driving by the church to pick it up. All the precautions noted above shall be employed. This applies to those distributing to the parishioners who drive by the church. Practice the best patterns of social distancing.

I remain grateful for you and your faithful ministry to our Lord and his people and confident we shall be more than conquerors through Christ who strengthens us!

May the Peace and Joy of the Risen Christ be with you and the people of God you serve in Him,

–The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence is Bishop of The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina

LAST Sunday morning, the glorious first Sunday of Easter, I asked my congregation to bring bread and wine to their front rooms and kitchen tables. I was aware that the situation was domestic, but I want to believe in a God who meets us in our homes and places of work, as well as in our churches.

We had a short service of holy communion on Zoom, at which I and many of the 90-plus people who joined me shared together, as our Saviour taught us whenever we gather together. They intended to be fed by Christ with the sustenance that they need for their ongoing journey during their isolation, lockdown, and Covid-19 illness.

As I reflect on the service, I think that it was the least-worst way to offer holy communion. I do not think that I will need to offer it again, unless we are still locked down at Christmas. But it was a gathered community, it was seemly and reverent, and people who were there have described it as a community communion.

Maybe it was even a little more inclusive than communion in church might have been, because I was in my home and so were the congregation. We made a holy space for God into our Sunday to Saturday lives.

Our sisters and brothers in other denominations have been pondering the same big theological questions during this pandemic. I hope that the House of Bishops will spend some time considering the work of those whose area of study is of digital worship — for example, as CODEC (Centre for Digital Theology) at Durham University.

IT MAY be that I am clinging to the eucharist as Mary did to Jesus. I know that, in presiding, I have broken my promise of obedience to my bishop….

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“But, as Easter approached, I began to wonder whether we could gather through Zoom and feel that familiar community connection. And I began to wonder about whether there was any way we could share holy communion together” https://t.co/eWQcuqsxsH

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 15, 2020

A PRIEST in Wrexham has become the first in Wales to be licensed for a new ministry through a virtual service.

The Rev Heather Shotton was due to have been licensed as assistant curate for the Offa Mission Area at a large church service in St Mary’s, Ruabon, last Sunday. That had to be called off due to Covid-19 restrictions and the closure of all church buildings. So she was licensed instead in a virtual service carried out via Zoom from her study with just her husband physically present.

Six vicars from different churches gathered online for the service to celebrate Heather’s new role.

It was led by the Archdeacon of Wrexham, John Lomas…. He said: “Priests can only operate under a license from a Bishop. There are clergy like Heather who had already been placed and were awaiting their license before the present crisis. This would normally take place within a service at their new appointment. So as not to create difficulties and gaps in mission the Bishop asked if we could conduct the licensing virtually.

“We used the form of service that had been prepared for Heather’s welcome and licensing. I brought clergy together from Heather’s former church, St Giles in Wrexham and her new Mission Area which includes Ruabon, Chirk and Penycae and we did the service and the licence by Zoom.

“Heather needed to sign the licence so it has been posted to her.”

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Psychiatrist Philip Muskin is quarantined at home in New York City because he’s been feeling a little under the weather and doesn’t want to expose anyone to whatever he has. But he continues to see his patients the only way he can: over the phone.

“I’ve been a psychiatrist for more than 40 years; I have never FaceTimed a patient in my entire career,” says Muskin, who works at Columbia University Medical Center, treating outpatients in his clinical practice, as well as people who have been hospitalized. Normally, he says he walks patients to the door, shakes their hand or touches their arm or shoulder to reassure them. “Now I’m not doing that, and that’s weird to me. So it’s a whole new, very unpleasant world.”

The pandemic has already robbed many of his patients of their livelihood, or at least their sense of safety. People literally feel trapped, he says.

That, in turn, is leading to a spike in anxiety, depression and addiction — not just among Muskin’s patients, but across the U.S. To try to address those needs, physicians of all kinds are adopting the techniques and technology of telemedicine, which had been only slowly gaining wide acceptance — until the pandemic forced everyone to isolate themselves, mostly at home. The recent demand for telecounseling, as well as for other types of online medical visits, is causing backlogs of care for many providers who offer it.

There are now also even fewer in-person treatment options for some of the most acutely mentally ill in New York, Muskin says; the psychiatric wards at Columbia, where Muskin normally works, have all been converted to beds for COVID-19 patients.

“That means,” he says, “we have no place to send patients who need admission.”

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The coronavirus crisis is leading to a spike in issues around anxiety, depression and addiction in the U.S.

So more mental health care providers are turning to telemedicine — and regulators are taking steps to make that easier.https://t.co/xsb6oxl3U5

— NPR (@NPR) April 9, 2020

p class=”css-exrw3m evys1bk0″>The official experts, under such conditions, are most trustworthy insofar as their admonitions track with nonexpert common sense. The approach that most experts are currently urging, for instance, is not some complicated high-science approach to disease management, but the most basic pre-modern method of disease control, as obvious to 15th-century Florentines as to 21st-century New Yorkers — shut things down, quarantine the sick and hope for the best.

Whereas the more specific and granular the experts get, the more the fluidity and chaos of the situation makes their pronouncements dubious. It’s good that we’re modeling the arc of the pandemic, but that doesn’t make any of the models trustworthy. It’s good that we’re trying to figure out how the disease spreads, but none of the claims so far about how you’re most likely to get it (from air, surfaces or otherwise) or who is most at risk (whether from viral load or pre-existing conditions) can be considered at all definitive. It’s good that we’re practicing social distancing, but all of the rules we’re implementing are just rough and ready guesstimates.

And you don’t want to overweight the pronouncements of official science in a situation that requires experimentation and adaptation and a certain amount of gambling. Yes, you should trust Anthony Fauci more than Donald Trump when it comes to the potential benefits of hydroxychloroquine. But the exigencies of the crisis require that experiments outrun the confidence of expert conclusions and the pace of bureaucratic certainty. So if you’re a doctor on the front lines trying to keep your patients from ending up on a ventilator, Dr. Fauci’s level of caution can’t be yours, and you shouldn’t be waiting for the double-blind control trial to experiment with off-label drugs that Spanish and Chinese doctors claim are helping patients.

The same logic applies for policymakers, for whom there is never going to be a definitive, one-size-fits-all blueprint telling them how and when to reopen cities or communities. Every single reopening will be its own unique experiment, with confounding variables of climate, density, age and genetics that are nearly impossible to model, and the advice of epidemiologists will only go so far. Governors and mayors will have to act like scientists themselves, acting and re-acting, adapting and experimenting, with expert advisers at their shoulders but no sure answers till the experiment begins.

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Superb column from @DouthatNYT on coping with uncertainty and lack of wisdom from our institutions during the pandemic. Highly recommended. https://t.co/MaUcu6vJvL

— Eli Lake (@EliLake) April 7, 2020

More than a million Americans have now been tested for the novel coronavirus, but access varies widely from state to state and often even between hospitals in the same region. New York State has tested more than 340,000 people, while California, with double the population, had tested just 143,800 as of Monday. That’s nearly five times as many tests when counted per capita.

And that’s just tests performed. With many facilities relying on third parties to process tests, that step in the testing process often becomes another bottleneck resulting in lengthy delays. After aggressive efforts to cut down a backlog of more than 59,000 tests, the state of California was still waiting Monday for results on more than 14,000 tests.

In New Jersey, results have frequently been delayed by up to two weeks. That’s led Governor Phil Murphy to caution that each day’s numbers include stale data.

“We are getting only a very fuzzy picture of the scope of the problem, and it is very slow to develop,” said Eric Blank, the chief program officer for the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “There are all of these questions about the virus that have been swirling around, and we are only starting to get some sense of the issue.”

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Coronavirus testing has become a massive logistical failure — one that has made it impossible to know how much the virus has truly spread and how many it has sickened https://t.co/5ueFJ320Ex

— Bloomberg (@business) April 7, 2020

“Mayors have had to have sessions explaining that the doors are not open for the churches to gather,” said Jesse Rincones, Executive Director of Convención Bautista Hispana de Texas — a collection of over 1,100 Hispanic Baptist congregations in Texas.

Like other clergies still working to serve their congregations, the organization is trying to preserve a sense of community amid a loss of routine, ritual and, at times, a sense of peace. Rincones, a pastor of 18 years, has been helping other churches’ leaders move their services online.

The technology aspect has been easier on the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, says Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg. UHC, which serves over 900 families, already had its livestreaming services set up for the homebound and college students, the rabbi said. Still, it’s a different experience.

“I know for many congregants it has taken some getting used to not being together and just sitting in their homes and listening and feeling like they’re watching as opposed to participating,” she said.

The virtual transition will be particularly challenging during the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins on Wednesday. The St. Louis synagogue is encouraging its congregants to allow for some flexibility with normally strict traditions. This year, the United Hebrew Congregation will be hosting its Passover Seder online.

“Whereas we may not be utilizing technology on a normal Passover, we are going to be using it this time so that we can connect,” Rosenberg said.

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As the coronavirus pandemic intensifies across the country, many churches, synagogues, temples and mosques are temporarily shutting their doors to all public services.https://t.co/a55Oi0N9hF

— Weekend Edition (@NPRWeekend) April 5, 2020

Now to return to virtual communion and the recommendation for Eucharistic fasting during this divine judgment on our social greed. Let’s take an exemplary proponent, Lutheran theologian Prof. Deanna Thompson, who is now at St. Olaf College. She is a personally credible interlocutor on the question of “virtual” ministry, as she writes out of her excruciating experience of life-threatening cancer in the prime of life. She’s published a book, The Virtual Body of Christ, in which she makes the case for employing the new social media technologies just as the Lutheran Reformation employed the Gutenberg press. I agree with much of this, as I said above. Nevertheless, I respectfully and yet sharply disagree with her urging in the present pandemic crisis that people at home should set up bread and wine, as if to participate via the Internet in the live streaming of the Lord’s Supper liturgy. As I’ve listened and pondered the arguments being made in favor of this proposal, I have come to a certain realization which I would like briefly to argue here.

Let me begin, by affirming that Christ is “really” in the preached word which can be conveyed through these media. He is really present to offer himself in his righteousness, life and peace for the auditor’s sin, death and disease. Long ago, however, I discovered that in the Lutheran confessional writings what was at stake was never this so-called “real” presence but rather the “bodily” presence of Jesus Christ according to his word and promise. What difference does this apparently subtle distinction make? Answer: historically it excluded the so-called “spiritual” (or “real”) presence as the specific blessing or benefit of the Lord’s Supper just as it excludes notions of “invisible” church as the “real” church as opposed to the visible assembly gathered around Word and sacrament. By the Holy Spirit the word of the gospel awakens faith and if we want to speak of “spiritual presence,” we are talking about this ministry of the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus Christ “real” to us. But what differentiates the Lord’s Supper is the promised presence of Jesus Christ personally in his own body-and-blood, so that the blessing is not merely privative, the forgiveness of sins, but also positive: life and salvation on account of this specific union with Christ that consists in physical eating and drinking in the common meal of the Lord.

Why does this specificity of Jesus’ bodily presence matter? For one thing, it concerns the identity of Jesus Christ as the very body born of Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate but vindicated and exalted to be present in his glorified body for the gathering of his faithful. This act of identification is precisely what the Lord’s Supper liturgy depends on, the specific act in the gathering as the church when a specific loaf is picked out with the words, “this is my body given for you….”

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I was like “I’ll log back into twitter to catch up on what I missed today” and now I’m depressed. So here’s a link I was coming here to post about virtual communion from a Lutheran standpoint but for similar reasons I agree. (Mainly “est” not “significat”) https://t.co/XVt1IEYLYd

— Marshall (@marshman503) April 3, 2020

Christians are to be encouraged to make their own paper or card ‘palm’ crosses and display these in their windows in a national virtual church service for Palm Sunday to be broadcast by the Church of England.

The Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, will put a paper ‘palm’ cross in the window of his Salford home in a national service he will lead for Palm Sunday, marking the start of Holy Week and Easter.

The Holy Communion service will be broadcast at 9am on the Church of England’s Facebook page and Church of England website, with readings from the Archdeacon of Manchester, Karen Lund and prayers by Lucy Hargraves from St Peter’s Church in Bolton. All three record contributions from their own homes in keeping with the rules on physical distancing.

In his sermon, Bishop David will speak of the strength and mutual support from the crowd that he addressed in Manchester city centre following the Manchester Arena attack in 2017

At a time when gatherings are no longer permitted in order to stop the spread of coronavirus, he said support and comfort was being drawn from events such as virtual church services and campaigns such as #ClapForCarers to thank NHS staff and key workers.

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Please join us for the @churchofengland national service, coming from @DioManchester this
Palm Sunday.https://t.co/weay32usfT

— David Walker (@BishManchester) April 2, 2020

A new survey by Barna Research found over the course of just a week, most church leaders went from thinking they’d be back to meeting as usual in late or March or April (52%), to projecting the changes would extend to May or longer (68%).

“There is this realism that’s setting in,” said David Kinnaman, Barna Group president.

But while most pastors are realistic, they’re also optimistic, according to Kinnaman. “One of the cool things about pastors we’ve learned over the years is that they are by job description and by disposition more upbeat, positive, hope-filled people,” he said. “So they are often pretty capable of putting a good face in a tough situation, and they, like other leaders, are going to face a lot of tough decisions in the coming weeks as the crisis continues.”

Though most had already called off normal activities at church, pastors also implemented swift changes in policies around smaller group meetings over the past several days.

The percentage who still allow the church building to be used for “small meetings and gatherings” has dropped by about half (from 18% to 8%), according to Barna’s Church Pulse survey, hearing from 434 Protestant senior pastors and executive pastors in the US. A plurality say the church staff will be working remotely for the foreseeable future (up from 25% to 40%).

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Pastors, yes, are worried about how the lack of Sunday services translates into a decrease in giving.

But the biggest concern is congregants: how to care for isolated members from afar and, in worst-case scenarios, how to minister to the sick and dying https://t.co/ww4GNzQlYW

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 31, 2020

Churches have had to adjust to the demands brought forth by the threat of the coronavirus. Along with having to livestream services with no congregations via social media, churches are having to find ways to make the opportunity of giving available to their congregations.

Many of the local churches are offering newfangled methods for their congregants to give as well as some of the tried-and-true methods.

“We’ve been very intentional about pushing people toward online giving,” said Joseph James, the pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church at 226 W. Liberty St. “We also have a giving app (on iPhones) that is available that we’re asking people to be using.”

James also pointed out that the older members of his congregation send their tithes and offerings through the mail.

“A large part of our congregation is 60 and over, and they are very conscientious about their giving,” he said.

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Despite virtual services, Sumter #SouthCarolina members still backing churches financially https://t.co/okYcywrbaT #religion #parishministry #coronavirus #covid19 #publichealth #worship #technology #internet #21stc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 28, 2020