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Dear Friends:
WCC Executive Director Kerri Parker recently passed along some questions that she had heard in church circles. Paraphrased:
- How do we stay COVID safe when the metrics we've been relying on are no longer reliable?
- How do we manage the logistics of kids, candles, singing "Silent Night" on Christmas Eve?
- We are staying the course with COVID-safe practices. We need to remind parishioners and leaders what we're doing and why. Is there a written resource we can use so we don't have to rely on memory?
These are worth answering. Let's take them in order.
Metrics
Unfortunately, there isn't a perfect answer to the problem of imperfect measurement of COVID levels. Epidemiologists know the numbers reported by the CDC are an undercount. But we don't have the data to estimate how big that gap is.
That said, there are some tools that can get faith communities closer to the truth, if not exactly at it. Start with the WCC COVID Risk Map. It's more conservative than CDC measures, which is exactly why you should consult it. If official metrics are understating the risk, why not err on the side of caution?
Other suggestions:
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Check the rate of hospitalizations for COVID, and/or hospital capacity. These are lagging indicators: people in hospitals now probably developed cases weeks ago. But they will give you some sense of how severe the situation is in your area.
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Look at wastewater data. Again, this is something of a lagging indicator. As well, not all water treatment systems monitor for COVID in their waste streams. But does show something about the trajectory of COVID. (Mostly, it's rising after a summer lull.)
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Keep track of what's happening with influenza. Read the Wisconsin weekly report, or see the CDC website. Flu isn't COVID, obviously, but it is a threat unto itself. And understanding it will give you a sense of what's happening with respiratory diseases overall. (Hint: it ain't good.)
Let's acknowledge that this requires a lot of work to take in and digest. I'll do my best to stay on top of the data and see if I can synthesize it for you. A word of caution as you look at the data, though. It may look like we're seeing relatively low levels of threat from COVID and flu so far this season. But as we saw with infections from the Omicron variant, things can escalate quickly. Most experts think that's what will happen this season.
Christmas Eve
Christmas is one of the busiest seasons of the Christian calendar, with families packed into services. We'll have a "double-dip" this year with Christmas falling on a Sunday.
How to stay safe? We'll repeat most of the advice that we gave last year:
- Get vaccinated and boosted. It's the easiest way to protect yourself and those around you. Get it done by December 10th to ensure protection on Christmas Eve!
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Everyone should mask at big services, even if your normal practice is no longer to require it. Christmas tends to draw people who don't often attend worship, increasing community risk. Make sure people wear high-quality masks, and provide them if possible.
- Limit singing: maybe only a verse or two of favorite carols and the entire "Silent Night."
- Don't blow out candles. Use snuffers, sandboxes, or battery-powered candles instead.
- The risk in handling and distributing candles is relatively low. But it's a good idea to encourage people to use disinfectant before and after. Ushers who bring the candles out and box them up after use may want to wear rubber gloves. COVID doesn't spread primarily through manual transmission, but some other bugs do. Think about wiping down doors and other frequently-touched surfaces before and after worship.
- Encourage regular testing.
- Stay home if you're sick, even if it doesn't seem like COVID.
- Keep the air moving, if possible.
Social distancing in the sense of remaining six feet apart is no longer emphasized as much as it was, because of how newer variants spread. It's a good idea to encourage family units to sit together with some degree of separation between them, however.
We'll add a few suggestions to the list as well:
- Keep virtual alternatives to worship. Encourage vulnerable members of the community to be selective in how many in-person services they attend. That especially goes for seniors, who are most at risk of dying from COVID.
- Encourage families to consider how many holiday events they want to take part in. A family that's been to two work parties, three school concerts, and a family gathering may want to attend Christmas Eve services online. That's especially the case if they're going to see Grandma the next day.
- As much as possible, limit the time people spend together unmasked. Keep services short. If there's a children's pageant or choir anthem, ask participants to sit separately until they're ready to begin.
This is a long list of ideas, obviously. Think about layered mitigations and risk budgeting. The more you do, the safer you'll be, but even compensating in one area may help offset risk in another. (For example, the more people who get boosted, the less likely it is they'll spread an infection through singing.)
Communicating the plan
It's easy to lose track of the congregational plan for COVID safety, especially for laypeople. It can also be difficult to follow when plans shift based on the level of community threat.
So it's helpful to have some kind of visual or written resource to point to. I've created a customizable version of our risk table to help you do just that. Click on the text anywhere in the second or third column and adapt it to your standards. When you're done, click the button at the bottom of the page to create an image of the table. You can print it out or use it online, in a newsletter, or to create a poster.
We hope all of this helps, and that you will have a safe and happy holiday season.
Stay safe and stay together,
Rev. Daniel Schultz
WCC Community Health
Program Director
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