Report of First Weekend of Public Masses

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The key to opening schools is to have widespread low-cost testing available. Right now the latest tests can have test results within 2-hours of a sample being taken. Companies are working to develop tests that the results could be ready within 10 minutes.

So to open schools safely, all, students, teachers, aids and staff should be tested right before school starts and those with no trace of the virus permitted to enter the school. Even more thorough, everyone who lives in the same household with the students, teachers, aids or staff ought to be tested for COVID-19 right before a school reopens.

And if the testing ever becomes inexpensive enough, the test (the most common one being a swap that was inserted in the persons nose that’s analyzed for the virus) could be conducted at the start of every week.

The best way to avoid COVID-19 spreading through schools is to ensure (through testing) that those at the school aren’t carrying around the coronavirus.
 
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Another very important thing people can do to avoid dying from COVID-19 is to be sure they’re not Vitamin D deficient. Studies are showing that the majority who die from COVID-19 were deficient in Vitamin D and as a result were like to suffer a fatal cytokine storm – a hyperinflammatory condition caused by an overactive immune system.

Vitamin D helps prevents cytokine storms occurring to those stricken by COVID-19. So while Vitamin D will NOT prevent someone contracting COVID-19, studies are showing those with sufficiently high levels of Vitamin D in their bodies will have a far better chance of surviving their bout with COVID-19.

So if anyone is planning to go out in public during this pandemic, including attending a Mass, they ought be sure that they are taking in enough Vitamin D in their diet (or through supplements).

www.sciencedaily.com

Vitamin D levels appear to play role in COVID-19 mortality rates

Researchers analyzed patient data from 10 countries. The team found a correlation between low vitamin D levels and hyperactive immune systems. Vitamin D strengthens innate immunity and prevents overactive immune responses. The finding could explain several mysteries, including why children are...
www.sciencedaily.com

 
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tomarin said:
So, essentially what you’re saying is, our priests are disposable?
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I don’t know where you got that I think priest are “disposable”. Anyone who know my posting history knows that I have a high regard for priest and that I regularly speak with them (generally I speak with 4 - 6 different priest on any given week: many of whom are close personal friends).

What I objected to, and was attempting to correct, is your mistaken classification of the work the clergy does as “their job”. I used last rites as an example of one of the various things they do as part of their vocation. I was sharing what priest have told me about their own internal struggles about the balance between their personal safety and doing what they believe God placed them on earth to do. One good friend, who is a younger priest (i.e. In his 40s), told me that “good shepards smell like their sheep because they are constantly among them." He felt that he is not doing what God called him to if he is not among his flock. Again, not my words but the words of a dearly respected friend.

Despite what you might think, offering last rites is not less hazardous than offering mass as it is often in hospitals where there is a much higher percentage of people with communicable diseases. In a Mass with 200 people, in my area there is a high likelihood that not one person has a communicable disease. Go into a hospital and you are pretty much guaranteed you will have contact with people with some type of illness or places where people transfered a pathogen outside a ward. I worked in hospitals for nearly a decade and you would be shocked at what we cultured off vending machines, bathroom door handles, and even stair railings. Hospitals do their best with sanitation (and significantly better than most places you’d visit}), but to say that hospitals are places you are less likely to contract illness than other public places shows a lack of awareness on the topic.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
Because people in supermarkets aren’t sitting still for 60 to 90 minutes, breathing basically the same air.
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They do much worse, moving around and spreading their unmasked breath as they go.

Do you think people have private air at a grocery store??? 🤨
 
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PetraG said:
You could look up the physical study of aerosol dispersión due to loud talking and know that 6 feet isn’t enough
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I have, and it is. There is very little research, and the vast majority deals with coughing or sneezing. I am not reading anything pre-2020 though to avoid political bias. I also ignore anyone, from president to poster that believes they know more than the CDC. I decided early on that I would glean all the information I could in the least bias method, then keep my own counsel on this, as long as it does not contradict the CDC. There are half as many opinions as their are nostrils, at least in the US of A.
 
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I can easily believe that hospitals are full of germs and that’s why during this pandemic they aren’t allowing visitors into hospitals. Also I understand the difference between a vocation and the job but I merely find it irrelevant to the situation we’re in right now. The virus doesn’t care about that distinction, it’s just looking for a warm body to infect.
 
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pnewton said:
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HomeschoolDad:
Because people in supermarkets aren’t sitting still for 60 to 90 minutes, breathing basically the same air.
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They do much worse, moving around and spreading their unmasked breath as they go.

Do you think people have private air at a grocery store???
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If they have any sense whatsoever, they’re wearing masks. If I were a storekeeper, it would be mandatory. No mask, no coming in here to shop.

It is all about probabilities, dispersion, and dilution. It’s been my experience that churches are not particularly well-ventilated. Sitting still for an hour, in the same place, six feet from neighbors in all directions, with five percent of everybody else’s cooties getting through your N95 mask — my mother wit just tells me that’s more hazardous than moving around randomly with possibly great distances (some grocery stores are big places) between you and anybody else, going in for what you went after, and then getting out.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
If they have any sense whatsoever, they’re wearing masks. If I were a storekeeper, it would be mandatory. No mask, no coming in here to shop.
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Would that it were so. It is quite frustrating that the employees wear masks to protect us, I wear a mask for others, and most of the people do not lift a finger (i.e., a mask) to protect me and the employees trying to protect them. At least at Mass, masks are not optional.
 
pnewton said:
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HomeschoolDad:
If they have any sense whatsoever, they’re wearing masks. If I were a storekeeper, it would be mandatory. No mask, no coming in here to shop.
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Would that it were so. It is quite frustrating that the employees wear masks to protect us, I wear a mask for others, and most of the people do not lift a finger (i.e., a mask) to protect me and the employees trying to protect them. At least at Mass, masks are not optional.
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As I said upthread:

People need to learn to do what they’re told… at least where this potentially deadly virus is concerned. Being a rugged individualist or a free agent has its time and place. This isn’t one of those times or places.

This is not a country, at least not in most places — locales with very socially-conscious, well-educated demographics might be better about it — where people do anything that they don’t want to, or refrain from doing anything they do want to. I guess it’s the whole “free country” thing. If this “second wave” does materialize, and if it’s exponentially worse than the “first wave”, then maybe people will just have to learn the hard way. I hope I’m wrong.

And in too many cases, a customer, with money in hand to spend, thinks they’re a minor deity, and that they own you. In France, that kind of attitude does not fly — you get the respect that you give in turn. That’s one thing they get right, and we don’t.
 
In NY State the governor has decreed a gradual process of 4 stages, with some regions just beginning this week, others not beginning yet. Church services are deemed to be in the 4th stage. Thus the earliest church service can maybe resume in some regions is end of June, with most of the State population in regions where it will be later still.

This is after haircuts (maybe About June 1) or restaurants (maybe about mid June). All that is contingent on “progress”, could easily be stretched out. Many beaches are opening now, I suppose with masks and social distancing (!)

This is a scary exercise in raw political power, sets a bad precedent for Church/state.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
People need to learn to do what they’re told…
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I think when it comes to Mass, people are doing as they are told. I know we are.

There is another poster who is a manager of some sort of a grocery store in the UK. He has told a few stories of having to expel people from the store for their mule-headedness during this time. I wish we had more owners like that.
 
pnewton said:
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HomeschoolDad:
People need to learn to do what they’re told…
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I think when it comes to Mass, people are doing as they are told. I know we are.

There is another poster who is a manager of some sort of a grocery store in the UK. He has told a few stories of having to expel people from the store for their mule-headedness during this time. I wish we had more owners like that.
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In the United States, expelling someone from a store can create some real problems — the customer is always right, the customer is king. And I hate even to have to bring this up, but if there is a perceived racial element, that can also open up a can of worms that few shopkeepers would ever want to deal with. This country doesn’t have the best history when it comes to that sort of thing.
 

We just lost a priest. It seems this was not related to re-opening Churches, but his community made a big blunder in not isolating him when he first came down with symptoms. Now they have five infected, with two saying Mass, again, something that should not have happened.

That said, there can be an important lesson here. All who attended their Masses are being asked to watch and be tested. If there is no outbreak of any significance (statistically), and if they were following proper guidelines, it well help confirm or disprove the effectiveness of current guidelines for Mass. Two weeks should tell the tale.
 
In NY State, in some areas, “private” services - funeral Masses - have been held, with a “limited” number of people. My hunch is that this exception will be quietly condoned. Sometimes. For some. Not others perhaps.

But this is a recipe for tyrrany: an excessively strict rule allowing exceptions at option of the government, rather than allowing churches to use their discretion.

Do you think this won’t set a precedent?
 
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I went to my first confession (after confinement) in preparation for the first Mass of Sunday. I live in Spain and my parish is doing the following:
-No more hymn sheet.
-We go in through one door and wipe our feet on a bleach soaked doormat and exit through another.
-Everybody will wear a mask.
-No sign of the peace.
-The benches have been marked so people can know where to sit.
  • The Body and Blood of Christ " from the priest and the" amen" from us will be said in unison (from our benches).
    -We are encouraged to take Communion in our hands, those who want in their tongue should do so last.
    -There will be someone at the entrance with hand sanitiser for the parishioners to use.
    The priest put up a video with the changes and it is also printed and pasted.
 
Agreed. The longer the amount of exposure in an enclosed area, in the same spot, the greater the risk. I stopped in a store recently and was in and out in less than five minutes and moving the entire time. We sit in church for at least an hour and really only move to take communion. Even the best mask may not be enough protection if you are sitting in recycled, contaminated air that long. When it’s warmer the parishes can open doors and windows to increase circulation, if possible. Fall and winter will be a challenge.
 
No it’s a temporary measure until the public health emergency is over. No need to be so suspicious.
 
commenter said:
Do you think this won’t set a precedent?
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Yes, it will, but only for future outbreaks of life-threatening disease. Historically, this type of precedent has already been set.
catholiclala said:
We sit in church for at least an hour and really only move to take communion…When it’s warmer the parishes can open doors and windows to increase circulation, if possible. Fall and winter will be a challenge.
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There is no one national best approach, as there is no one national climate. We only have summer and notsummer. Also, Mass is not an hour long.
 
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