When news of COVID-19 spreading from Wuhan struck our consciousness, it seems so remote. Central Asia has always been the hotbed of diseases from ancient times. Few cross ocean to reach us. When it arrived our shores and lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020 we thought like a wave of the flu it would vanish in a month or so. Even when the first COVID-19 deaths became news, it seems to touch others, not anyone close to us.
A year and a half and surge upon surge later our sense of invulnerability has given way to disquiet. COVID-19 is no longer over there. It is over here. What are we to do?
Now that we have recovered our breath, let me point out two mistaken attitudes for Christians, especially Christian leaders in this time of pandemic.
Do Not Deny The Reality Of Covid 19
The first mistaken attitude is quite common. For some reason it shows a growing mistrust of science. But pretending that COVID-19 is a hoax or is a means for hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies to make big money, that is like ostriches hiding our heads in the sand. People are dying right and left. That cannot be attributed to just trangkaso or the flu.
COVID-19 and the flu are both viral diseases and the fact is that the symptoms of COVID-19 and the flu virus are very similar. But COVID-19 is more deadly and spread much more quickly than the flu. Some get COVID-19 and get only mild symptoms but others get it and are gone in a matter of days. So doctors advice that if you have flu-like symptom, assume it is COVID-19 unless proven otherwise.
As Christians we have the duty to love our neighbor. And takingCOVID-19 lightly can make us spreaders of death rather than bringers of life.
Bunker Mentality
The other mistaken notion is to wait out until the storm blows over our heads s that we can return to church as usual. In the meanwhile we do everything via online. I wonder though how long churches can hold themselves virtually. If we do a virtual communion, what about a virtual baptism? Or a virtual funeral service? It gets more bizarre once you cancel out the incarnational reality of the Church.
The Church As Frontliner
Sonia and I observed firsthand our frontliners at work. They were ambulance drivers, baranggay health record keepers, nurses who swab nostrils and throats, doctors who examine patients. Every so often they spray their hands with an alcohol sprayer tied to their waist. Despite plastic protective equipment, they put their lives on the line.
At the height of the Battle of Britiain, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, spoke in a radio broadcast to the nation, “Never in the field of human conflict has so many owed so much to so few.”
He was speaking of the brave young men who piloted the planes of the Royal Air Force. Of the 1,796 pilots fielded by the RAF during the Battle of Britain less than three hundred lived to to tell their story.
We owe so much to our frontliners.
Where was the Church while the battle was raging against Covid 19? We cannot say that the pastors were hunkering down in their bunkers for so many who continued to serve their constituences at great to themselves laid the ultimate price.
By and large, however, these sacrifices were made individually. What is missing is an overall conscious response to take part in the action. We cannot swab nostrils or dispense medication. But we can look around us and see the effects of the pandemic upon families, children, the relatives of those stricken by disease, the psychological trauma being suffered by those grieving from the deaths of loved ones.
What it takes is to begin to frame our response to the pandemic from one of mere survival to caring for those who are suffering its effects.
