Good day everyone! It’s a wrap!

We now have three living archbishops of the Church of Uganda. Henry Luke Orombi, Stanley Ntagali and now Stephen Kazimba Mugalu.

Congratulations Archbishop Kaziimba. A new chapter starts now.

And that’s all for today’s coverage of this very important event in the Church of Uganda’s life. Thank you for following along.

I will leave you with this picture of Kaziimba flanked by his predecessors . . .

Read it all and enjoy all the terrific pictures.

The Board, Management and Staff of Uganda Civil Aviation Authority congratulate, Bishop Samuel Kazimba, the 9th Archbishop of the Church of Uganda. We join the Church of Uganda in the celebrations today. @ChurchofUganda @ruthnankabirwa1 @UgandaMediaCent @vluggya @LukeOrombi pic.twitter.com/HLo6iwsXmI

— Uganda CAA (@UgandaCAA) March 1, 2020

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

The Somalia-based al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab has “ordered” Christians to leave three counties in northeastern Kenya to allow local Muslims to get all local jobs, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.

“Muslim teachers, doctors, engineers, and young graduates from the northeastern province are unemployed. Isn’t it better to give them a chance? There is no need for the presence of disbelievers,” al-Shabaab’s spokesman, Sheikh Ali Dhere, said in an audio clip posted online, referring to the counties of Garissa, Wajir and Mandera.

In the 20-minute clip, the spokesman urged Somali-Kenyans to drive all non-Muslims out if they do not leave on their own.

The majority of the people living in the three counties are Somalis, who fled to Kenya due to war and violence in Somalia.

Read it all.

Al-Shabaab warns all Christians to leave northeastern Kenya https://t.co/meYMfwuxWq

— The Christian Post (@ChristianPost) March 2, 2020

Yeb Saño believes that the environmental crisis is rooted in three human characteristics, all of which are “closely connected with who we are”. All of these three words, he says, “start with the letter A”.

The first word is arrogance. Arrogance is the belief that you’re better than God or better than nature, that we’re smarter than nature – and that has caused a lot of havoc in the world.

The second word is apathy. Apathy is the dangerous belief that it’s somebody else’s job to care, it’s somebody else’s job to take care of others or take care of the environment.

And the third one is avarice, which is extreme greed. Greed has made this world a much, much worse place to live in. Greed is what drives, for example, corporations to only think about profits and not the people and the planet.

These are three words that “we as Catholics strive to stand up against”, three forms of a lack of love: “the love that Pope Francis reminds us to embrace as a commandment from God and as an example from the life of Jesus”, says Yeb Saño.

Read it all.

A wonderful interview w/ @YebSano following @CathClimateMvmt meeting w/@Pontifex last week “This crisis needs to be a uniting factor for all faith communities & for political leaders…” https://t.co/a7O4cpumrf Scroll down page for audio. #livelaudatosi @LaudatoSi_IRE #LiveLent

— Jane Mellett (@Janemellett) March 1, 2020

…Modi’s record on religious freedom since becoming the leader of India has not been something to be proud of. His silence when minorities in India have been targeted and lynched by right-wing mobs has been telling. The worst sufferers of the wrath of extreme Hindu nationalists have been India’s Muslims—the targets of cow vigilantes and much hate speech—but Christians have not been far behind. The fundamental freedoms promised by the constitution of India to religious minorities are being constantly eroded, and persecution is a daily reality for many Christians in India.

Radicals affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) movement and its family of organizations—including Modi’s BJP—have been making concerted efforts to attack Christians both physically and socially. Groups such as Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which believe in the ideology of Hindutva as promoted by the RSS, have disrupted worship services in churches, beat up pastors and other Christians, engaged in vandalism and destruction of property, and have pressured many Christians to recant their faith and forcibly convert to Hinduism.

The lack of police action, and in too many cases the cooperation of the police with the radicals, has resulted in a culture of impunity, emboldening the oppressors to attack without fear of any consequence. This has resulted in a sense of insecurity felt by many Indian Christians. It does not help that responsible leaders of Modi’s party, including state and union ministers, routinely engage in hate speech against Christians and other minorities. This only bolsters the radicals, who view this as open encouragement to target minorities.

According to the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), which has been documenting incidents of persecution against Christians since 1998, incidents targeting Indian Christians have risen steeply since 2014, when Modi came to power. The commission recorded 147 verified cases of persecution in 2014; 252 cases in 2016; 351 in 2017; and 325 in 2018. The EFI commission will soon release the data for 2019.

Read it all.

This week, President Trump said that Indian prime minister Modi was “incredible” on religious freedom and that he wants “the people to have religious freedom and very strongly.”

Why these words were so disappointing to this Indian Christian leaderhttps://t.co/QlXuIE1OwS

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 29, 2020

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

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

Almighty God, whose servant Chad, for the peace of the Church, relinquished cheerfully the honors that had been thrust upon him, only to be rewarded with equal responsibility: Keep us, we pray thee, from thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, and ready at all times to give place to others, (in honor preferring one another,) that the cause of Christ may be advanced; in the name of him who washed his disciples’ feet, even the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today is the Feast of St Chad, great Northern saint noted for his humility & love. Happy Chad’s Day, @ChadsAlumni, @StChadsJCR, @StChadsMCR! pic.twitter.com/OLYoWDD3wX

— margaret masson (@margaretmasson) March 2, 2017

O Lord our God, grant us, we beseech thee, patience in troubles, humility in comforts, constancy in temptations, and victory over all our spiritual foes. Grant us sorrow for our sins, thankfulness for thy benefits, fear of thy judgment, love of thy mercies, and mindfulness of thy presence; now and for evermore.

2 Dec 1660: John Cosin is consecrated as Bishop of #Durham #otd A prominent royalist exile, he helped compile the revised Prayer Book in 1661. His extraordinary library is still intact at Palace Green #Durham (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge) pic.twitter.com/UlcThyvmnR

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) December 2, 2019

Blessed is he who considers the poor!
The Lord delivers him in the day of trouble;
the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
thou dost not give him up to the will of his enemies.
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness thou healest all his infirmities.

–Psalm 41:1-3