This isn’t the column I planned to write this week, but in light of the rapidly developing COVID-19 crisis, it’s the column I that I felt needed to be written. We all have a part to play in slowing the spread of the virus, and each of you reading this has an important role to play by immediately adopting best practices, including social distancing. As medical historian and epidemic expert Howard Markel recently put it, “Coronavirus is a socially transmitted disease, and we all have a social contract to stop it. What binds us is a microbe — but it also has the power to separate us. We’re a very small community, whether we acknowledge it or not, and this proves it. The time to act like a community is now.”

When Jim Wallis’ column about the impact of the coronavirus on the most vulnerable went live last week, the United States had identified just over 200 cases of COVID-19, even though the illness caused by the coronavirus has been spreading around the world for the past four months and this week was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. As we go live with this article today, nearly 1,300 cases have been identified in the United States, and it very much seems that this number will continue to climb rapidly in the days ahead. It’s also important to understand that the actual number of people with COVID-19 right now is much, much higher than 1,300, given how little testing has actually been done in the United States so far.

As I write this piece, my sons are not at school but home with me, because their elementary school decided to start Spring Break three days early to slow possible transmission of the virus and keep the community as safe as possible. While this has caused some inconvenience, I realize just how fortunate I am — I can work from home when needed and I have access to both sick leave and personal days. This is not the case for the majority of workers in the country. Congress will likely be voting soon on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which would provide urgently needed funding and provisions for free testing, three weeks of paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, supplemental food stamps, and nutritional support to kids who depend on school lunch. I’m hopeful and prayerful that the White House and Congress can transcend politics in this moment and pass this bill, because the virus knows no party and a bolder response is overdue.

Here's what I want the church to know.

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