Corona Virus 12 March - from contain to delay (updated 13/2)
At St Mary’s we met yesterday morning to think in-depth about the Corona Virus and its effects. We have an amazing team here at our church - made up of so many of us who volunteer, support, pray and give in so many ways as well as those who are here in the building mid-week. One thing we try to do is to take on the most up-to-date and accurate information that we can find because there are so many sources of information out there what can we trust? This update is coming after the new information yesterday afternoon. We ask the community to continue to keep us aware of any updates as the advice and information is being continuously updated
As Christians we believe that we follow a living God who was raised from the dead and as Christians our motivation needs to be to live from love not fear; as wise not foolish. Living from love not fear means noticing and naming our motivations and the extent to which we are thinking beyond ourselves to love our neighbours. How do we do that? May I suggest four ways:
Firstly, Bishop Alan has four great Coronavirus Golden Rules which are worth praying over and reflecting on. I would encourage you to read them in addition to this practical information in my post.
Secondly, we were discussing at staff team today the extent to which the term “social distancing” being used at the moment is unhelpful and should be replaced by another term. Our own Peter Adams talks about a better alternative on his blog post which I would encourage you to read.
Thirdly, many of the practices that I teach at Joyskills and at our monthly Christian Mindfulness and Meditation service help us grow our capacity to face difficulties with faith, hope and love. I will be sharing some of those over the next few weeks.
Finally, living wisely means to adjust habits and our social norms as a church. You can read more about that at the bottom of this post
Yesterday we heard from the Prime Minister that we if you have either a new continuous cough or a high temperature then you should stay at home for seven days. We would ask you to honour that. The advice is that people should continue to keep going out. They are not encouraging us to stop meeting together but to continue at this time. The point is that more drastic measures are not the best idea for this time. Expert advice is that: the virus is mostly spread through respiratory droplets, which may travel up to six feet from someone who is sneezing or coughing. The new corona virus isn’t believed to be an airborne virus, like measles or smallpox, that can circulate through the air. One expert writes, “If you have an infected person in the front of the plane, for instance, and you’re in the back of the plane, your risk is close to zero simply because the area of exposure is thought to be roughly six feet from the infected person,” Cheap surgical masks have no effect but “N95 masks” (search for them online) can make a difference; close contact with an infectious person, such as shaking hands, or touching a doorknob, tabletop or other surfaces touched by an infectious person, and then touching your nose, eyes, or mouth can also transmit the virus. Hence the advice to wash your hands regularly People are contagious before they show symptoms; children under 18 do get the virus but the symptoms are milder; there is no definitive data on how long the new coronavirus can survive on surfaces, but based on data from other coronaviruses such as SARS, it may be for up to two days at room temperatures. This outbreak is going to be a matter of months not days. The government were talking about it peaking in 3 months time or so but this will change; please be aware of having an adequate supply of medication you take in your cupboard (don’t get near to running out before you update your prescription); If you are wondering how fast it will grow then the number of new cases are is doubling every four days or so; many people will get the illness. The govenrment's aim is not to stop the illness but to flatten the curve of infection. In other words, without intervention the infection shape would be like a cone the police use. Quite flat then rising sharply and dropping again. The sharp rise has the effects that we are seeing in Northern Italy of overwhelm in the hospital which means that people cannot get good treatment. The British governments aim is to shape the outbreak like a sombrero where the maximum is lower but wider which means that people get better treatment and the NHS is less overwhelmed.
What are we adjusting? We have adjusted how we do communion, refreshments and visiting; our layout will change in order to meet conditions; and we are currently exploring putting part or all of the 10:30am service onto Facebook Live in the next few weeks. You will be able to find that on our Facebook page. We won’t be able to get the sound perfect on this as we are likely to be using a mobile phone but we would like to make it possible for people to keep in touch with the Sunday rhythm this way if they are not coming into the central gathering.
We are following Church of England guidelines that change regularly (we check daily and will adapt as time goes on). Here are some of the guidelines we are following at the moment:
HOLY COMMUNION
Current practice: offer Communion in one kind only to all communicants i.e. the consecrated bread/wafer, with the priest alone taking the wine; and to stop physical contact during welcome to church, the sharing of the peace, blessing or "laying on of hands" (in prayer ministry). We will move generally to having wafers.
It is best practice for churches to have hand-sanitisers available for parishioners to use [where they can be resourced]; in addition, priests presiding at the Eucharist, communion administrators and servers should wash their hands, preferably with an alcohol-based (minimum 60%) hand-sanitiser before and after Holy Communion.
REFRESHMENTS and SERVING OF ANY KIND
We ask all who are serving in any way – refreshments, welcome, children or youth ministry to maintain good hygiene. We have adjusted our cleaning in church in response to this outbreak. All surfaces are wiped down.
We suspend catering (teas, coffees etc) where multiple people touch mugs, utensils, biscuits etc. This means that we will not be offering any open plates of biscuits and grapes and hirers are asked not to as well.
VISITING AND CARE FOR THOSE AROUND US
No pastoral visits should be undertaken to people who are self-isolating until isolation ends. However, do offer phone support.
Visits to people in care homes or hospitals should follow advice from the staff on infection control.
When the government moves phase in the outbreak, we will be thinking about how we can support anyone who is vulnerable who is needing to self-isolate.
HOW CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?
Live as healthily as you can; continue taking your medication and vitamins; get rest and sleep; spend time with the Lord; reduce your alcohol intake; follow government and NHS advice on contact with people for those with your demographic and risk factors as the outbreak develops.
In all these things let us live wisely but lean on God in prayer, calm, thanksgiving and worship motivated by love not fear with an attitude of hope and faith.
Every blessing
Rev Mike Jones St Mary’s Church Luton
Sources: Church of England: For more information see: https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-churches; PCC, staff, ministry leader please read: https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-parishes/coronavirus-covid-19-additional accessed 12/3/20
University of California https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/02/416671/how-new-coronavirus-spreads-and-progresses-and-why-one-test-may-not-be-enough accessed 13/3/20
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm (public health scientist and a biosecurity and infectious disease expert in the United States. Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. One plus hour discussion of background on https://youtu.be/E3URhJx0NSw