Here's How I See the Response to the Pandemic Playing Out Now in the United States: People Who Will Pay Highest Price for "Re-Opening" Are the Vulnerable, Elderly, Poor, Minorities

The U.S. just reported its deadliest day for coronavirus patients as states reopen, according to WHO. At least 2,909 people died of Covid-19 in 24 hours. https://t.co/ZepbBKONel

— Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) May 3, 2020

Here's how I see things playing out now: the "re-opening" process is going to be more or less the norm across the US. We Americans are never long-term thinkers, in any case. We like frenzy and mobility and things to do. We also don't have a solidaristic bone in our bodies: it's all about individualism and (my) liberties.

Whose Life Is Expendable, Whose Is Not? More on Tacit Agenda of the "Pro-Life" Party Supported by White Christians to "Re-Open" US

Two days ago, I wrote, 

What most "pro-life" white Christian Republicans will not say out loud right now — though an increasing number are doing just that — is that they consider some human lives expendable when it comes to generating income for those who are already rolling in money. 

This pandemic is disproportionately killing the elderly, those with pre-existing medical challenges,  members of minority communities including notably African Americans and Hispanics, and those in prison.  

For "pro-life" Republicans, some lives are expendable.

12,000 US Catholics Sign Petition to Bishops to Permit Public Masses for Easter: "The Reckoning Is Upon Us"

Kansas Gov Laura Kelly puts in place a stay-at-home order and a ban on large gatherings, like other (sane) governors.

Republicans in KS Legislature just **overturned** the ban on large gatherings because they...

want Kansans in large gatherings?

now?https://t.co/OFDx224vny

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) April 8, 2020

Commentary I have found worth reading, and want to pass along to all of you:

Cardinal Collins on Agitation of US Right for Congregational Worship During Pandemic: "Shallow" and "Absolutely Irresponsible"

It’s so strange to hear people lamenting that they are deprived of church now, when many of those same people have been perfectly content for years now to see LGBT people excluded from church, made unwelcome, fired by church institutions simply for being LGBT. /1

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) April 5, 2020

I don’t recall having heard any laments from any of the people lamenting now about their exclusion from church when it was “only” the LGBT community that was excluded, run off, deliberately made unwelcome.

We LGBT folks may have some tips for handling the no-church thing. /2

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) April 5, 2020

The culture-war battles within the US Christian communities are so old, tired, enervating, aren't they? I regret any time I am pulled into them again — and yet, it's almost impossible not to be pulled into them, when you and people like you are among those being targeted by a powerful sector of Christians in the US.

Some Churches Holding Palm Sunday Services in States Across US: Reuters' Documentation, April 5, 2020

Editorial Board: A response to "We Are An Easter People"

While clearly a cri de coeur from those who, like we, desperately miss the sacraments, we strongly believe that much of what the message advocates is ill advised and, worse, could cause great harm.https://t.co/4BqWnSPzuy pic.twitter.com/blmWkxY2H7

— Our Sunday Visitor (@OSV) April 4, 2020

Despite huge red flags waved in front of their unbelieving faces, there are still people who want to maintain that religious gatherings are not being held in the US in defiance of stay-at-home orders, since everyone they know is participating in religous gatherings online. These folks remind me very much of an elderly German woman I saw interviewed in a documentary this week who vowed that, no, sir, no one was murdered during the Holocaust, that the gas chambers and crematoria were fake news — and as she spoke, the camera panned to actual footage of the crematoria stuffed with ashes and bones, and actual photos of people who had been shoved into mass graves after they were shot by the Nazis.

Today's Guardian on Growing Backlash to Appeals to Cease Religious Gatherings, Fueled by Top GOP Leaders

Since it appears some people just do not intend to get what's going on with some communities of faith — churches, notably — in the US during the pandemic, and the serious dangers some behaviors are posing to all of us, I'm glad the media keep hammering away at the backlash movement to keep churches open where they are now open and hosting meetings, or to reopen them where they have been closed. This is a largely American phenomenon, and it speaks volumes about the kind of American Christianity, especially "pro-life" white Christianity, that placed Donald Trump in the White House.

As Some Officials Exempt Religions Gatherings from Stay-at-Home Directives, Medical and Legal Experts Respond to "Incredibly Bad Idea"

St. Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel, book 1, chapter 1, 3-4, from "Advice on Prayer — Ambrose," at Crossroads Initiative 

Here's some commentary for you from the last day or so on the move of some US officials to exempt religious gatherings — they provide "essential services," we're being told — from stay-at-home directives that apply to everyone else.

How Some Catholics Are Doing Their Bit to Defy Medical Advice and Government Guidelines and Own the Libs During This Pandemic

If you want to complain about the no public Masses, new rules you must follow:

-Read at least 10 articles on the closures of Churches during the Spanish flu & during the time of St Charles Borromeo
-Physically visit the dying yourself in this time and put your life on the line

— Fr. Harrison Ayre (@FrHarrison) March 31, 2020

As McKay Coppins noted two days ago in an article "The Social-Distancing Culture War Has Begun," in the first part of March, it appeared that Americans across ideological lines might be getting the imperative need to practice social distancing. Widely circulated photos of those partying on beaches or Bourbon Street seemed to capture the reactions of younger people who were not acting out political defiance, but who had simply not gotten the message about the need for social distancing to flatten the pandemic curve.

As America Becomes Number 1 in World Coronavirus Infections, the "Beautiful" Idea of Packing Churches for Easter: My Commentary

8 in 10 white evangelicals, 6 in 10 white Catholics & Mormons, 50%+ of all US white Christians, set this nightmare into motion, claiming they voted "pro-life."

We must not forget. Racism + US white Christianity are central to this nightmare. Pretending re: this will not help.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) February 15, 2019

An update on the story I shared with you recently (and here), about First Assembly of God church in Greer's Ferry, Arkansas, which hosted a children's crusade March 6-8, and then discovered that some three dozen church members who attended that event were infected with coronavirus: that story continues to gain international attention, as with this recent NBC news report. 

Washington Post Reports on Arkansas Church with COVID Infections as Warning for Other Churches: My Response

KFSM News Arkansas, "Coronavirus live updates: 236 confirmed cases in Arkansas, 1,050 negative tests thus far"

In an article entitled "'Take it very seriously': Pastor at Arkansas church where 34 people came down with coronavirus sends a warning," Julie Zauzmer reports on the story about which I shared information yesterday, about a church in Arkansas 34 of whose members now have COVID. She reports that the pastor of the church, Mark Palenske, is urging other churches to learn from his church's experience, and take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.

My Reflections as Minnesota and Vermont Declare Grocery Clerks Emergency Workers

Hell yeah, now make it national https://t.co/XEad0wx53j

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) March 19, 2020

The people putting their lives on the line right now to serve the rest of us are medical personnel and also grocery store workers and people delivering goods in trucks all over the country. The latter two groups are often significantly underpaid and have few or no benefits, including paid sick leave.

Media Vita in Morte Sumus: Pandemic Wave Is Now Cresting in the US, with Dire Results Predicted by Experts for Weeks Now

Please remember: you may “feel fine,” but you can still pass the illness on. We are all connected.⬇️ https://t.co/QCwkIG7cGq

— Jo Scott-Coe (@joscottcoe) March 17, 2020

My apologies for being slow to post. I am dealing with the shock of learning from my brother that his partner was hospitalized this weekend for pneumonia, and is on a respirator with sedation.

Today, they got the results of diagnostic tests, and his partner has COVID-19.

Fiddling, Burning: Commentary in the Time of Coronavirus

#ProLife https://t.co/YEM6KsIotU

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) March 9, 2020

David Remnick, "Trump in the Time of the Coronavirus": 

Donald Trump is incapable of truth, heedless of science, and hostage to the demands of his insatiable ego.

Ruth Krall on Coronavirus: "If We Fail to Adequately Care for Those Who Cannot Care for Themselves, the Door will Open to Threaten Us All"

There are only TWO coronavirus cases in Mexico.

There are 16 in Canada.

For Trump, every problem has the same solution https://t.co/DV6GnePbNg

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 29, 2020

I'd like to share with readers this morning an email that Ruth Krall sent to me yesterday, which contains some of the best commentary I've yet read on the coronavirus discussion. Ruth has kindly given me permission to share her thoughts. She writes,