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.”
US Surgeon General advises churches to “limit touching, especially hand-to-hand” @edstetzer https://t.co/hQmAv19zgH
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 4, 2020