Five lessons I learned from a COVID-19 spike at our church
“In March, April and May, our church staff braced for a wave of COVID-19 cases to sweep through our church family. It never happened…. Two weeks ago, that all changed. Like most churches, we moved to an online-only format in March, but as soon as our governor and state department of health gave us the green light, we started meeting in socially distanced services.” - BPNews
From the post:
- There is a second wave. …
- It happens fast. …
- Assume every sniffle is COVID-19, and act quickly. …
- OVID-19 is a serious illness. …
- Isolation and social distancing work.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
One other thing to mention, perhaps from the pulpit, is that the predictors of serious consequences from COVID-19 are age and what doctors call metabolic syndrome—more or less the combination of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. If a person wants to prepare for COVID-19, he can’t exactly reduce his chronological age, but he can take a walk, try to lose some weight, and deal with high blood pressure and high blood sugar.
I also read some good things about nasal irrigation—more or less putting a saltwater solution in your nose to clean out your sinuses and nasal cavities. No firm, statistically sound studies on this yet for COVID, but anecdotally, I’ve had great results doing a daily nasal irrigation—far fewer colds and such. The logic is that if you wash out viruses and bacteria, they are less likely to gain a foothold in your nose and then in your lungs.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Aaron Blumer]From the post:
- There is a second wave. …
- It happens fast. …
- Assume every sniffle is COVID-19, and act quickly. …
- OVID-19 is a serious illness. …
- Isolation and social distancing work.
My understanding was that this isn’t really a second wave, but an extenuation of the first wave. A pedantic point, maybe, but could be significant in our understanding of how this disease works.
My concerns about church (we are following by live stream): (at our church)
- No social distancing
- No masks
- Singing
OK, in a world where everybody admits the predictions of infection rates have huge confidence ranges, how are we going to figure out which portion is from riots, which portion is from social opening, which portion is from churches, and the like? I’m at a loss!
Also, it strikes me that what we have most significantly here is that government officials running the response aren’t seeing and responding to the biggest risks out there—and may be hiding them from the media.
Another side note; I half wonder if the riots/re-opening, which have occurred mostly without big spikes in the death rate, are a great way of getting at least initial immunity from the disease that (if it remains controlled) could end up ending the epidemic. The rioters are, after all, mostly young/middle aged and healthy, and a lower risk group. Time will tell.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
My worry is that as weeks go on churches will begin let down their guard as this pastor says. I’ve been a bit of a pain stressing that we don’t loosen our procedures over the weeks being open. Both for the risk, but also for the ones returning to church later then the first and being put-off by the apparent disregard for safety.
[Joeb]I hadn’t heard that about type O blood. My wife has type O, and she came down with Covid 19 two days after I did, though we think she was the one who carried it home from her workplace. Perhaps her blood type was the reason her symptoms were delayed a few days from mine.I heard that people with Type O blood common donor have more resistance to Covid 19 and Type A have the least resistance. I don’t know if this is true but I have Type O but my lungs are already scarred up from having a Fungus infection in my lungs as a kid when I lived in Iowa. The Fungus Infection is endemic to the Midwest. So I’d say I’m still vulnerable.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-…
For what it’s worth.
WHO dropped the ball on China, but I can’t say that invalidates their claims on what does and doesn’t work in fighting the disease. However, some part of the page are clearly weakly written.
- “FACT: Rinsing your nose with saline does NOT prevent COVID-19”
… they have overstated themselves on this one. Their own text says “there is no evidence that…” This is not the same thing as “fact… does not” … duh.
Regarding blood type, some more info:
- Seems to be a severity correlation of some sort. Very preliminary… https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/06/18/genes-blood-type-tied-to-covid…
- More on the topic https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-what-does-blood-type-have-to-do-with-…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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