The US COVID-19 Pandemic Response’s Missing Ingredient—Leadership!

By Robin G. Jordan

If the COVID-19 coronavirus can be spread by airborne transmission, a conclusion to which mounting evidence points, attendees at an indoor political rally like the one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who sit for long periods of time listening to a speech are at much higher risk of an infection than attendees at an outdoor protest march, who, while shouting and chanting, are constantly on the move. While both groups may not be wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing, the attendees in the first group are in an enclosed space while the attendees in the second group are in the open.

The attendees in the first group have a high likelihood of breathing recirculated air in which the COVID-19 coronavirus in the form of airborne particles is lingering. The attendees in the second group, on the other hand, have a greater likelihood of breathing fresh air untainted by the virus as long they keep on the move. However, once the protest march stops moving, and the attendees have sustained contact with each other for a long period of time, their risk of infection goes up.

Attempts to equate indoor political rallies with outdoor protest marches and to shift the blame for an increase in COVID-19 cases attributed to indoor political rallies to outdoor protest marches reflect ignorance of these differences on the part of those making these attempts or a calculated attempt to exploit the public’s ignorance of the differences. Gathering outdoors without face masks and social distancing can be dangerous. Gathering indoors without face masks and social distancing is even more dangerous.

In pushing for the reopening of public schools President Trump and his administration is counting upon the public having become inured to the reports of skyrocketing COVID-19 cases as have the president and the administration. President Trump is not known for his high level of empathy and his public comments suggest that he was already written off the high number of casualties that his efforts to reboot the economy will cause. His motives for reopening the schools is to put the parents of school age children back to work. He is counting on an improvement in the economy increasing his chances of reelection. He is insisting that the Centers for Disease Control water down its proposed guidance for school reopenings. The health and safety of America’s school children is the least of his concerns.

Unfortunately many churches are looking to use how schools are reopened as a guide in reopening their children’s ministries. If schools are reopened prematurely and inadequate measures are taken to protect children and their teachers, the same thing is likely to happen in children’s ministries.

While Germany, Denmark, and other countries have successfully reopened schools, these countries have taken two steps that the United States has not taken. First, they have reduced overall number of new cases to low levels. Second, a number of these countries have set apart additional funds for schools. In many parts of the United States the COVID-19 pandemic is raging out of control. The federal government has hardly done anything to help schools to reopen.

For schools to reopen safely would require much more rigorous measures than the Trump administration is willing to take. It would require greatly increasing the amount of testing, limiting the size of classes, reducing the length of the school day, requiring face mask wearing and social distancing, and retrofitting schools with ventilation systems that provided classrooms and common spaces with fresh air from outside of the school building rather than recirculating existing air. A number of the new schools have been built with no windows or windows that do not open. These are just a few of the measures that school districts would need to take to protect students and teachers and the larger community.

The Trump administration has on several occasions weakened the CDC’s recommendations to serve its political purposes. President Trump has urged both states and churches to prematurely open. He is now urging schools to do the same thing. In the meantime the United States is experiencing surges in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. A number of churches have become the epicenter of clusters of new cases.

In Florida an Assembly of God church held a youth event with up to 100 teens in attendance. One of those teens who had a compromised immunity system subsequently died, a victim of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

When the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic is compared with that of other countries, the United States falls in the category of countries that have made least adequate response to the pandemic. Its poor response can be attributed to a lack of leadership at the national level and inconsistent leadership at the state and county levels. For states, counties, businesses, and churches the absence of credible guidance, based upon the latest scientific findings, has been more than a headache. It has been a nightmare.

Economic recovery is not going to bring back the lives that the COVID-19 coronavirus has taken. It is not going to ameliorate the suffering that the virus has caused. The virus is not going away any time soon and will be with us for the foreseeable future. Any economic recovery is likely to be short-lived if strong measures to contain the virus are not implemented.

The United States needs dependable leadership at the national level and more consistent leadership at the state and county level if it is to pull through this pandemic. In some cases, meeting this need will require a change of leadership; in other cases, it will require existing leadership taking the pandemic with far more seriousness than that leadership has to date.

Churches need trustworthy guidance to make the important decisions related to their worship and their life, which they need to make. We do not need to hear more stories of churches that followed what guidance they were given, only to discover it was not adequate enough to protect their congregations and their communities from the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Readers may disagree with this analysis. That is their choice. However, they need understand that making such a choice is not without ramifications. All our choices have consequences and they may be consequences that we do not welcome and even may regret.