Local churches of several denominations have worked together to take the lead in establishing an Emergency Community Network for the rural area centred on Carlton, (between Selby and Goole) in the south of the Diocese of York.

Invited by North Yorkshire County Council, Curate of Carlton and Drax the Revd Becky Allright has been heavily involved in co-ordinating a number of organisations and groups to offer a single route for people to request and access support during the Coronavirus lockdown which began in March 2020 and whose end date is still not known.

“In the parish there are no other ‘infrastructure’ organisations that cover the entire area, so there are five [civil] parish councils, two Methodist Circuits, one Roman Catholic church, and three different GP practices, so none that cover the whole geography,” explains Becky.

Set up in March by a group of friends and volunteers, the network has been running whilst everyone is in self isolation.

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Churches lead in launch of Carlton and Villages Network, Diocese of Yorkhttps://t.co/Ncox4uix8u pic.twitter.com/bo9V2t3orR

— National Churches Trust (@NatChurchTrust) May 15, 2020

Scrub-a-dub-dub, it’s Bill Murray in a bathtub.

The Charleston resident and movie star video-chatted with Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night from his home — more specifically, from his bathtub.

“If there’s anyone that can shake us out of this pandemic doldrum, it’s my guest tonight,” Kimmel begins the video. “He’s joining us tonight from Murray Manor. Please welcome Bill Murray.”

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Charleston’s Bill Murray talks about wearing masks, missing RiverDogs from his bathtub | Charleston Scene | https://t.co/r8rC7tf9TP https://t.co/bZAVHJIs9R

— Victoria Hansen (@VHansenSCRadio) May 15, 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

Bishop Steve Wood was released from the hospital following 10 days on a ventilator amidst treatment for COVID-19. An otherwise healthy man in his 50s who had not before been hospitalized, Wood is far from the image of elderly or medically compromised patients we regularly read about in the news.

The rector of St. Andrew’s Church and bishop for the Anglican Diocese of the Carolinas shares with the Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Jeff Walton about what sustained him during a period of intensive care, ongoing recovery and God bringing “beauty from ashes.”

Take the time to watch it all (just under 18 minutes).

“I don’t believe that God promises to spare his people from these kinds of things,” @revstevewood says after 10 days on a ventilator. “Paul tells us in Romans that God’s ways are inscrutable … there are times when we have experiences of severe mercy” https://t.co/lluClj8ise

— Jeff Walton (@jeffreyhwalton) May 11, 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

As churches learned this week that their coronavirus shutdown could end in July, administrators of the nation’s cathedrals are beginning to consider what life in the “new normal” will be like.

With their doors closed, many have adapted new technology, live-streaming services and linking remotely through apps such as Zoom. But cathedrals have also taken a severe financial hit, with the loss of collections, no visitor spending, and the cancellation of events that often fund a significant proportion of their annual expenditure.

“On top of daily worship, events are the bread and butter of what cathedrals do, but they are going to be low down on the list of things relaxed,” the Church Commissioners’ Head of Bishoprics and Cathedrals, Michael Minta, said. The Commissioners fund each cathedral’s dean, two residentiary canons, and some lay staff.

Cathedrals had had great expectations for 2020: the Year of Cathedrals and the Year of Pilgrimage were expected to boost visitor numbers and involvement. “There was a real positive vibe last year that things were really going to be good for everyone,” Mr Minta said. “But, instead, many have had to stand staff down, buildings are closed, their cafés and shops are shut, and income has been lost.”

Larger cathedrals, such as Canterbury and St Paul’s, which rely on tourism from overseas, have been badly affected; Durham’s 750,000 visitors, one third from overseas, provide one fifth of its annual revenue of £7 million.

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Cathedrals face sharp drop in income https://t.co/uf1CTi6qHr

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 15, 2020

The Premier League’s plans to resume the season next month was given a boost on Thursday when Britain’s Culture and Sport secretary Oliver Dowden said the government was “opening the door” for football to return in June.

Dowden said he held a “positive meeting” with football authorities — which included the Premier League, the English Football League and the Football Association — to “progress plans” for football to resume.

The professional game has been suspended since mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed over 33,100 people in the United Kingdom.

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“The government is opening the door for competitive football to return safely in June. This should include widening access for fans to view live coverage and ensure finances from the game’s resumption supports the wider football family.”https://t.co/2G04AIuCMM

— Krishna Eluri (@krishna_eluri) May 14, 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

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst say that in thee we may have peace, and hast bidden us to be of good cheer, since thou hast overcome the world: Give ears to hear and faith to receive thy word; that in all the confusions and tensions of this present time, with mind serene and steadfast purpose, we may continue to abide in thee, who livest and wast dead and art alive for evermore.

Praise the LORD! O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever! Who can utter the mighty doings of the LORD, or show forth all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!

–Psalm 106:1-3