It’s hard to compose a post about something Mormonish when the dark cloud of the Great Pandemic of 2020 hangs over daily life here in America. Have you ever read The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman? It recounts the events leading up to the First World War and how the initial German campaigns played out during the critical first month of the war. Everyone, on both sides, thought it would be a short affair, all wound up by Christmas. In 1918, four years and millions of lives later, battered armies were still slugging it out in the trenches. Pandemically, I feel like it’s December 1914 and we’re starting to realize this is a long-term thing. We still have other viral illnesses, colds and the flu, every year. Now we’ll have coronovirus, too.
But things will get better. A vaccine will improve things. The big things in life will get back to “new normal” (people will go back to work, to school, to church) but lots of little things will change permanently. What has changed for you already? I’ll list a few secular and a few churchy things that have changed or that will change, most for the better, probably.
Daily life:
- More working from home, even when things settle down.
- Checkers behind plexiglass, just like bank tellers.
- A lot less dine-in and a lot more takeout.
- A whole new way of coughing in public.
- A lot less public touching going on: doorknobs, keypads, armrests.
Church life, and it’s going to be really interesting to see whether these possible changes are mandated from the top or whether local units makes some of these changes or whether individual members force the changes themselves:
- No more handshaking. Ever.
- The whole sacrament procedure is going to change, or else a lot of members are going to just say no.
- What if they pass the sacrament and no one partakes? (“Thanks but no thanks, bishop. I’ve renewed my covenants a few thousand times already. I feel like I have satisfied my lifetime quota.”)
- New calling: Church Cleaner (circulate throughout the building on Sunday, spraying and wiping).
- Don’t come to church if you are sick!
- Somehow change the class and teaching and calling arrangement so people can feel they are not letting everyone down (class without a teacher, etc.) by not coming to church despite being sick. Call permanent subs for Primary.
- Temple practices will certainly have to change, but I’m not going to speculate on the details.
- Clean the pulpit and the mic between speakers? Yeah, maybe that’s too much to ask. Or maybe not. Ask Rudy Gobert.
A month ago, a lot of this would have seemed like overkill in church. It would have seemed awkward and out of place. But with all the changes that merchants and governments are putting in place to protect employees and customers, it’s going to be almost expected in church. A lot of little things are going to change.
What changes have you noticed in your daily life? When and if you go back to church, what are your expectations?
Wheat & Tares 
Meh. Nearly all of these suggestions seem like over reactions. Once the initial “wave” passes, we’ll realize that the inconvenience of these suggestions outweighs their usefulness. The seasonal flu routinely kills 50,000 every winter–about where COVID is predicted to be–and yet society has made no accomodations, other than an annual vaccine campaign.
In Idaho, the bank tellers aren’t behind glass (except the drive-through), so the prediction of grocery checkers being there seems unrealistic. The handshake has survived centuries of pandemics, and will survive this one.
If the church changed culture so that “people can feel they are not letting everyone down” when they don’t show up, we undo 20 years of improvement since Pres Hinckley encouraged everyone to have a calling and feel needed. The world will return to normal, and so will the church.
Finally, calling this the “Trump Pandemic” is really unproductive.
ChiCom Pandemic is more like it. Yet another great gift from the left.
Perhaps the Church will finally concede the necessity of meetinghouse cleaning being done by paid professionals from now on.
I am absolutely not a Trump fan, but your “Trump Pandemic” label is totally distracting to your post. Big mistake.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
So I have renamed the scourge the “Great Pandemic of 2020” and edited the above post. I remain rather miffed by the fact that the USA is doing as bad or worse than just about any other country at dealing with the virus: worse than Communist countries, worse than socialist countries, worse than Third World countries. And we had a month or two of warning. We can chew on explanations for our poor performance in another thread.
Other Clark, I think once national chains standardize things, you’ll see some of these measures applied everywhere, with regional or local stores following that example. I have been in Seattle for about three weeks, where some of those measures got a head start because Washington was hit first. But if Costco makes changes in all its stores like it has in Washington (and why wouldn’t they?) most other stores will have to follow suit. Give it a couple of months.
Dave B: I appreciate that you care about reader feedback. My assessment of the US response vs the rest of the world is that the US had a slow start due to three factors: (1) The Trump administration’s priorities (2) the Federal system in place that allows 50 different governing bodies to decide what to do (3) a decentralized healthcare model which combines state, federal, and private care. But I think we are catching up. The US death rate compares favorably to many European countries. I think I feel more secure in the US than I would anywhere else (maybe outside of NY of course).
Anyway, to answer your question about life will change within the Church, let me offer this perspective: I believe that we still have several weeks (months?) before we are allowed to attend regular church services on Sunday. The longer we go at home, the harder it will be to return for some. Once you’ve tasted those free Sundays, it may be hard to go back to life as we knew it. Plus, in the past you might go to meetings even if you were feeling a little under the weather. Now, I think the default will be to stay home. Finally, I think the stigma about missing church meetings has lifted. Even when we return we will expect to see fewer active members due to the reasons mentioned above and other reasons. And with a reduced stigma comes reduced activity.
I think we are going to really test the Brethren’s notion that Gospel study is home-centered and church-supported. We’ll see if they meant it. I could see even active members saying: “let’s take the sacrament once a month at church and then spend the other 3 weeks doing home study”.
Until a vaccine exists, I and other older members won’t take the sacrament in the traditional manner, spacing or extra sessions of sacrament meeting will be considered, 2nd hour may not restart. Can you imagine the number of older primary and nursery teachers who would be risk. The need for paid janitors will never become more obvious. Poor habits and cleaning at church will cause more than a few to attend less regularly.
I’ve tried to do my part for the economy and order lots of take out. I will never get take out again after quarantine is over. Every single order has had mistakes (usually small but still not what I paid for,) and there is not much to be done about it. By the time I get home the food is cold. I would love the church to go back to hiring janitors. I stopped voluntarily cleaning years ago because of the ridiculousness of cleaning to save money for a billion dollar church at the expense of proper cleanliness.
Once there is a vaccine and I am able to get it, I *might* slide back into old habits. Until then , I’m not shaking hands, I’m not partaking of a public sacrament, I sure as hell am not going to the temple, and I may not even set foot in a church building.
We should be careful in comparing COVID-19 with the flu. The difference is COVID-19 is a novel virus – one that is a new strain not previously identified in humans and, importantly, one that does not have existing antibodies in the population. What that means is a lot more people are susceptible to getting Coronavirus than the flu. So even if the COVID-19 and the flu have the same Infection Fatality Rate, the ratio of deaths to the actual number of infections, Coronavirus will kill more people if measures are not put into place to limit its transmission. This is because the entire population is susceptible to the Coronavirus while part of the population is already protected from a flu that is not novel. The COVID-19 projections developed by IHME (https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america) has this caveat displayed at the top of their charts “COVID-19 projections assuming full social distancing through May 2020.”
So even if we limit the US to 68,841 deaths by August, there will be a sizable portion of the population still susceptible. The same for the rest of the world. So Dave B. is correct, we are going to need long term measures to slow the transmission. These are needed to not overwhelm healthcare facilities while a vaccine is developed or to allow enough non-vulnerable people to be infected and become immune to the point where the transmission risks to vulnerable populations are significantly reduced.
I’m no scientist but the latest theory is that the anti-bodies for the coronavirus wear off just like they do for the common cold which is also a coronavirus by the way. Just because you’ve have had a cold once doesn’t mean you won’t get one again. The implications for Covid are that if you recover from it you can still get it again. And the second time around is apparently worse. That means decreased prospects for a vaccine or herd immunity. All of this is early days of course. The scientists are still trying to figure it out. But unfortunately I think the virus will be with us for some time.
I have been a permanent primary sub for over a year, along with four others, so that’s nothing new if the Primary Pres. Is organized.
I would love the church to pay full time custodians again.
As for passing the sacrament, how about having the youth get a food handlers permit and serve with gloves on. Instead of the usual bread trays, get double the cup trays and each piece of bread go in the little plastic cup just like the water. Parents could teach little ones, take the cup closest to you.
I am all for no more handshakes. You never know if you will get the “cold fish” hand or the “bonecrusher” hand.
How about cutting the second hour to just 30 minutes? I am liking home church a lot. Shorter talks, shorter lessons, and comfortable clothes. I don’t look forward to going back, honestly.
That’s crazy, I JUST finished The Guns Of August earlier today!
I’m in Calif and am following Governor Newsome’s statements about what to expect when it comes to reopening the state. One of the things that is interesting is the things he’s talking about as option for when schools open back up in August. He’s talking about ideas on how to rearrange classes so that social distancing is in effect at all times (by spacing out kids, by staggering ‘school’ time so that few kids are in the classroom at a time, etc). No idea how any of that is possible, but its what is under discussion.
If all this happens at our schools, then it’s going to need to happen at church too. How do we hold a class with 10 eight-year-olds in a tiny little classroom? How do you hold Sacrament? How do you protect the over 60 in the ward (which is a very high percentage of my ward)? It will be interesting to see what happens. I wouldn’t be surprised if we all just stay home from church for a year or so until the vaccine is developed and in wide-use.
BB is correct, antibodies for the corona virus seem to wear off just like those for a cold do. Most of the SARS viruses form antibodies that wear off. A cold is a SARS virus and actually related to this new virus. Immunity seems to lasts between a year and not at all, but so far this is mostly the scientists best guess. They really don’t know yet how effective a vaccine will be. People in China who had the corona virus are getting it a second time and the second time seems worse. Scientists really don’t know if a vaccine will be any more effective against this virus than a cold vaccine is against the common cold. Which means that high risk individuals will need quarterly (?) yearly (?) booster shots and everyone else will just take their chances like we do now with the flu. I know that sounds scary, because it means that many of the social distancing behaviors will need to become permanent.
So, if there is not an effective vaccine, our world may look very different in a few years. Handshakes, good riddance. Bowing seems more dignified anyway, rather than seeing if you can squeeze hard enough to display your dominance as some kind of male pissing contest. We might have sacrament that is individually packaged bread and individually packaged water, so that it doesn’t get contaminated while being broken or passed down the row when someone sneezes on it, or even breathes near it. And we will sit in individual pews separated by 6 to 8 feet. High risk individuals will probably continue wearing face masks in public, big gatherings will become a thing of the past for many of us, and for many people televised church will become the norm. Working from home will become more common. Colleges will like the idea of internet classes because they don’t have to supply classrooms. Theaters will go back to the idea of private box seats. Restaurants will make separate booths, with actual walls separating diners because let’s face it, take out gets cold and lacks ambiance. All of us will travel less and depend on internet to stay connected with loved ones. I really don’t know, or care much, what will happen with professional sports. One idiot governor declared professional wrestling an essential activity that needs to continue during state lockdown, so, if that is how most fans feel, they will continue to gather in large groups even if it kills them.
Let members bring their own emblems, set them on their laps during prayers and partake of them without passing. Anything else is to risky for higher risk members.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Kevin, I’m thinking a surprising number of members may end up holding the rather bleak position you outlined. I suspect leaders will take quite awhile to figure out how much the thinking of average members has changed. Maybe when they try to pass the sacrament and the trays all come back full.
BB, I think you’re right. There will be no vaccine. There will just be a yearly Covid shot that might work or it might not. This is gonna end up being a risk like car accidents (which we can mitigate by airbags and seatbelts) and violent crime (which we can mitigate by avoiding dark alleys at night). This will never go away.
Joni — great book, isn’t it? And I hope you know the story of how John F. Kennedy was so impressed by the book he made his cabinet and his generals read it. He credits the book with helping him successfully resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. His generals all recommended some form of military action, some quite extreme, all of which he declined to take. Instead, he avoided escalation and groped his way to a resolution.
I have found The Atlantic to be running some of the best analysis articles on what is going on — to government and society, not the scientific side of things. Along the lines of my post, but more detail and better writing. Here’s the latest, worth a read:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/after-social-distancing-strange-purgatory-awaits/610090/
BB and Anna, as a researcher who has studied infectious diseases for many years, I just want to clear up a misconception here about the common cold. When we talk about the common cold, we are referring to certain symptoms that are actually caused by many different viruses – dozens, in fact. The reason that we don’t have a vaccine for the common cold is because it is caused by so many very different viruses, and you can’t fit them all into one vaccine even if you could identify every single one of them. It has nothing to do with immunity wearing off.
COVID-19 is caused by one virus with slight genetic variations around the world. There is no reason to believe that we won’t be able to make an effective vaccine against it eventually.
But creating a safe and effective vaccine wi take time.
The best solution is to do what we have done through most of the history of the Church. Permit priesthood holders to exercise their priesthood but blessing the Sacrament in their own home routinely and not requiring special approval by an authority fixated hierarchy . We should go back to practicing the “true order of prayer “ in our homes such as was done for the first 100 years of the Churchs history. .Why are my Protestant friends able to worship collectively either through televised worship services but we aren’t. My friends who live 400 miles away and I are holding a SS class every week via Zoom. It is much more interesting than any GD class I have attended in decades.We need to recognize that the Time of the Gentiles has been fulfilled and things will never be the same.
Thank you, Rita!
Rita, I was just quoting an opinion from another expert, and trying to simplify what was said down to a few sentences instead of 10 pages, so, I don’t know if you are a better “expert” or if I just simplified a wrong direction, or of you are just more optimistic than he was. His argument was not to idea that there are too many viruses causing Covid 19, but that the human immunity does not last more than a few months to a year. So, his conclusion was that it will take booster shoots every few months to a year at best and an worst, that vaccines would simple be ineffective because the immune response is too weak to prevent reinfection. People in China being reinfected tends to say he is correct, and you are overly optimistic. But I am just reporting what I read.