It’s time to think creatively about how to safely open up civil society as well as the economy.
For more than a month, it’s been illegal in most states in the country for more than a handful of Americans to gather in a church, synagogue, or mosque. With some obvious exceptions, the general prohibition on large gatherings, including religious ones, has been a legal and prudent means of stopping the virus from spreading at an exponential rate. But as government officials prepare to open up American commerce, they should also think about how to safely allow Americans to attend religious services again.
In a recent column for the Washington Examiner, “Roll back the stone: It’s time to let people back into church,” Tim Carney wrote that we need “reasonable efforts to enforce the essential rules that slow the spread of the virus without placing an undue burden on worship.”
Carney proposed that houses of worship be subject to the same occupancy restrictions as retailers: “For instance, in North Carolina, big retailers are allowed to have far more than 10 people in their stores. They can have one person per 200 square feet or 20% of the normal maximum occupancy.”
There is some precedent for what Carney proposes. When the Spanish flu hit the United States, the city of Milwaukee had the lowest fatality rate of any major city in America. Although the city shut down its churches during its first outbreak of Spanish flu, churches in Milwaukee were allowed to operate at 50 percent of their normal capacity during the second wave.
Still, there are some big problems with Carney’s proposal. First, we are still learning about how the coronavirus is spread, and it’s not clear that church in an enclosed environment will be safe even with a greatly reduced number of people in attendance.
In Washington state on March 10, after residents were aware of and worried about a coronavirus outbreak in the state, 60 members of a Presbyterian church gathered for choir rehearsal practice.
The members of the choir used hand sanitizer, avoided physical contact with one another, and tried to maintain distance from one another. “Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead,” Richard Read reported at the Los Angeles Times on March 29. “In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.” One infectious-disease expert, Read noted, “said it’s possible that the forceful breathing action of singing dispersed viral particles in the church room that were widely inhaled.”
But even if congregants don’t sing, holding religious services indoors at 20 percent capacity presents a problem, which is that an awful lot of people will not be allowed to attend. Who wants to have a bouncer outside a house of worship?
A better alternative could be holding religious services in wide-open spaces outdoors.
The virus doesn’t appear to spread as easily outside. It’s much easier to maintain proper physical distance outdoors. Football fields conveniently already have lines drawn every 15 feet, and many have bleachers, so it wouldn’t be difficult for hundreds of people to gather spaced out at a safe distance from one another. Of course, baseball fields, soccer fields, parks, and hay fields out in the countryside could work just as well.
Asked about allowing religious services outdoors, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said it could be a good idea if proper social distancing were maintained. “I believe the first things governors will try to restart are some outdoor activities that give us a sense of normalcy. Allowing religious services to take place outdoors with proper social distancing could be a very attractive and appropriate proposal along those lines,” Gottlieb tells National Review in an email. “The target for these activities should be the beginning of May in most parts of the country, given that many regions that have been affected really haven’t started to show significant, sustained declines yet.”
Holding religious services outdoors obviously isn’t a perfect solution. There is a lot more space in small towns and suburbia than in large cities, and thunderstorms or extreme heat could cancel services. But, with the proper precautions, it still seems like a better and safer alternative than holding services indoors at greatly diminished capacity.