How a church revival in a small KY town led to a deadly CV outbreak
How a church revival in a small Kentucky town led to a deadly coronavirus outbreakBailey Loosemore and Mandy McLaren,
Louisville Courier Journal
Read here: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2020/04/02/coronavirus-kentucky-hopkins-county-church-revival-led-outbreak/5111379002/
Excerpts:
The event has now been linked to at least 30 cases of the virus — including three deaths, health officials have said. And more positive tests are expected. The widespread ramifications are a prime example of what can happen when people refuse to take adequate precautions, Gov. Andy Beshear said while discussing the event Wednesday.
On Thursday, The Courier Journal learned more about those consequences, including:
*An infected church member carried the virus to the GE Aviation plant in Madisonville, the county seat, where seven employees have tested positive.
*A church member in Dawson Springs died from complications from the virus, and a first responder who assisted the resident has also fallen ill.
*Two cases in Muhlenberg County are linked to the revival, as are an unknown number of cases in Warren and Clark counties, the latter of which is on the opposite side of the state.
The major towns in Hopkins County are Madisonville, the former home of the Happy Goodman Family gospel music group, and Dawson Springs.
The ignorant statements from church and community officials demonstrate the outright denial of what's been known for over two months prior to this event regarding how dangerously contageous this disease is.
One woman even stated that because it's a church, she thought it would be safe.
KY.........
= new reply since forum marked as read
Knowing the culture fairly well, I strongly suspect that these days, the majority of people there rely entirely on their church pastor and a small circle of church and work friends, thereby forming a closed information bubble.
Many are also enveloped in a secondary info bubble controlled by right-wing elements such as Faux and Limbaugh, which we have discussed extensively here on DU.
I think in order for them to want to learn even the basic science of this pandemic, some of the key leadership elements within those closed bubbles must initiate strong changes of attitude and "preach" the science. For example, town mayors or church pastors could conduct educational videos for placement on social media or TV. The flock would listen.
A similar effect might occur if key leaders in the right-wing media and political leadership came to their senses and preached the science.
Hypothetically, if Trump was the leader we need him to be at this time, he would call around 100 of the primary leaders of evangelical churches and right-wing media into a meeting and lay the law and science down on them hard. If he did that, we would see an almost overnight change in people's attitude on handling this national emergency.
Sadly, I'm not positive on that happening at all.........
precautions and spreading the virus.
Their prayers, songs, and most especially the half-empty collection plates were not enough to reach him to prevent this from happening.
Sending tots and pears their way.
It’s almost like forcing science denial on public schools and years of right wing hate radio/tv are hurting us now!
and in no small way tell all their churches to cease all meetings. Until that happens, I fear these events will continue since local pastors who probably are poorly educated on the science of this disease will stay in denial.
I believe most church pastors are like most political conservatives - they rely on a leadership structure and follow it blindly. Unfortunately, far too many preachers these days also worship the GOP's leadership structure and it's to their peril.
Bottom line is it's time for both political and religious high-level leaders to have the humility to come out in public and preach science and rather than gospel.
KY..........
In my youth in central Tennessee, most churches were old-fashioned Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian that were affiliated with a national structure and in the case of my church, the Southern Baptist Convention.
There were a few of the churches we considered odd-ball that were holy-roller, snake handlers, faith healers, etc. that to my knowledge had no national association. Evangelicals were also quite rare.
Apparently as you say, that has all changed and the weird ones have become mainstream.
The other thing that's changed radically is a high percentage of the populace (and by default, their churches) have become glued at the hip to the religious right. As a result, I'm hardly on speaking terms with many of my classmates and extended family.
That very change, I fear, is what will bring America to her knees......
It breaks my heart to have witnessed the moral shift that's happened in the South after the 60s. We had serious racism issues back then but most people were good-hearted, open-minded and they respected science and reason.
But that was before the Southern Strategy took hold and well before Fox News and Limbaugh......
