As best the agency’s models can tell, the peak number of daily deaths was likely observed nearly two weeks ago on April 9, when 16 people in South Carolina died from COVID-19.

Peak “hospital resource use” was reported on April 10 when 270 hospital beds were being utilized across the state by coronavirus patients.

The agency anticipates a total of 261 people will die from the disease in the state by early August. To date, DHEC has reported 150 deaths.

The projections can change quickly. Only one week ago, DHEC’s models showed more than 600 South Carolinians would likely die from coronavirus this spring and summer, and that the disease would peak in late April and early May.

The new projections offer hope that social distancing measures observed by millions of people across the state have worked to keep the disease contained.

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South Carolina’s health department predicts weekly coronavirus cases will continue to drop in late April and early May.

This suggests the virus’ spread may have turned a corner in S.C. or that the disease curve may be flattening. https://t.co/DqXEEBSclX

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

As coronavirus cases have risen across Africa by almost a third in the past week, a leading charity has called for the urgent cancelling of debt repayments from the poorest countries.

Christian Aid said that repayments should be cancelled this year to help countries spend money on saving lives instead.

The charity said that there are now over 16,000 Coronavirus cases in Africa, an increase of 27 per cent over the previous week, with the number of deaths rising by 43 per cent to over 740.

However, they point out that with extremely low testing carried out across Africa so far, the true figure is feared to be even higher, with some warning the continent could see tens of thousands of cases in coming weeks.

Christian Aid added that many African countries lack the specialist equipment or staff to cope with a pandemic. They have published research that shows that in a country like Malawi, there are only seven ventilators for 18 million people.

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Years ago I preached a sermon on death to a relatively young congregation. As I greeted congregants after the service, many smiled the Southern smile that means, “We know our manners but don’t like what you said.” Yet one elderly couple stopped to talk. “We’ve never heard a sermon on death here,” I recall the wife saying. “We needed one. We’re old and we know what’s coming.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has swept away the illusions that led the congregation—and much of the world—to ignore death. The virus will kill only a small minority of the world. Yet its prevalence has reminded people everywhere that if Covid-19 doesn’t kill them, something else will. This​realization recalls a truth central to the Christian tradition: No one will get out of life alive.

Over time Christians developed a set of practices to help us tell this truth and to prepare for death. In the Middle Ages this was called the ars moriendi, the art of dying. Today, a quick death often is seen as ideal. Yet the ars moriendi holds the opposite view: It’s a good thing to see death coming and to have time to prepare. Time and habit provide the chance to live fully and—even at the last hour—become a mature human being, one who tells the truth.

I know this firsthand because my dying wife tells the truth. When she was referred to hospice some time ago, after a long and painful decline, she simply noted, “I don’t want to die. I want to finish raising our son.”

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The coronavirus has swept away the illusions that led so many of us to ignore death. Confronting the truth of our mortality can yield remarkable freedom and love, writes C. Kavin Rowe https://t.co/3JPBhijGWp

— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) April 24, 2020

For the first time, one of the many COVID-19 vaccines in development has protected an animal, rhesus macaques, from infection by the new coronavirus, scientists report. The vaccine, an old-fashioned formulation consisting of a chemically inactivated version of the virus, produced no obvious side effects in the monkeys, and human trials began on 16 April.

Researchers from Sinovac Biotech, a privately held Beijing-based company, gave two different doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to a total of eight rhesus macaque monkeys. Three weeks later, the group introduced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the monkeys’ lungs through tubes down their tracheas, and none developed a full-blown infection.

The monkeys given the highest dose of vaccine had the best response: Seven days after the animals received the virus, researchers could not detect it in the pharynx or lungs of any of them. Some of the lower dosed animals had a “viral blip” but also appeared to have controlled the infection, the Sinovac team reports in a paper published on 19 April on the preprint server bioRxiv. In contrast, four control animals developed high levels of viral RNA in several body parts and severe pneumonia. The results “give us a lot of confidence” that the vaccine will work in humans, says Meng Weining, Sinovac’s senior director for overseas regulatory affairs.

“I like it,” says Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who has co-authored a status report about the many different COVID-19 vaccines in development. “This is old school but it might work. What I like most is that many vaccine producers, also in lower–middle-income countries, could make such a vaccine.”

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For the first time, one of the many #COVID19 vaccines in development has protected an animal, rhesus macaques, from infection by the new coronavirus, scientists report. https://t.co/AzFfTHLfWt @pulitzercenter

— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) April 23, 2020

It’s been a busy few weeks in Hereford Diocese, while local people are doing their part to support the current pandemic by staying home, the team at the Diocese working in partnership with Herefordshire County Council and Wye Valley NHS Trust have developed and launched a brand new service, helping people in the community to return home safely following a hospital stay.

“The support service is a brand new partnership and the church is ideally placed to help those trying to put their lives back together” explains, Richard Jones, lead co-ordinator at Hereford Diocese.

The Home Safe from Hospital team forms the last piece of the jigsaw when it comes to getting people who have recovered from or who have been in hospital for a stay, to be discharged from hospital, back home and settled safely.

“For many older people it’s difficult right now, much of the usual care support systems are not on hand for older people and their friends and family are unable to visit in the way they usually would so that’s where we come in. The local hospitals needs to ensure it has beds available for patients with Covid-19” says Richard.

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Lord Jesus, I beseech Thee by Thy glorious Resurrection, raise me up from the sepulchre of my sins and vices, and daily give me a part in Thy Resurrection by grace, that I may be made a partner also in Thy Resurrection of glory.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Joyeuses Pâques à toutes et tous !
Aujourd’hui les chrétiens et les chrétiennes célèbrent la Résurrection de Jésus-Christ.

Andrea Mantegna
La Résurrection
1459
Bois transposé sur toile puis collé sur panneau de bois
H. 71,1 cm L. 94 cm
Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts pic.twitter.com/vm6Kxn1q6y

— Charlène Monot-Breganni (@CharleneMonot) April 12, 2020

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved….Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore

Psalm 16:7-8;11

Beauty of Spring pic.twitter.com/K9Y0i32gHR

— Dede (@giannis2221963) March 30, 2020