A Washington choir is in mourning after the novel coronavirus ripped through its ranks at lightning pace. Two members of the Skagit Valley Chorale have died and multiple others are confirmed infected with COVID-19 following a routine practice some three weeks ago.

According to a report in the LA Times, the group was debating whether or not to hold their weekly rehearsal — slated for March 10 — but decided to go ahead given that there were no reported cases in their area at the time.

Upon receiving a notice from choir conductor Adam Burdick, about half of the 121-strong choir turned up for rehearsal at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church. They took precautions; hand sanitizer was offered at the doors and physical contact was largely scaled back. According to those present, none of the attendees were showing symptoms.

Fast forward three weeks and some 45 of them have now been diagnosed with COVID-19. Three have been hospitalized and two are dead.

Experts are dumbfounded by the extent of the outbreak, not least because the virus spread so widely despite a restriction on physical contact.

Indeed, many have insisted that the disease must have taken on airborne characteristics and been transmitted from people who were not exhibiting any symptoms. This contradicts the officials line from the World Health Organization, which argues that the illness is spread via larger “respiratory droplets,” emitted when a person coughs or sneezes.

SOURCE: Faithwire, Will Maule

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Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian relief organization founded by evangelist Franklin Graham, has set up an emergency field hospital in New York City, an area hit hard by the COVID-19 virus.

The Central Park tent hospital is filled with 68 beds and a special respiratory field unit. Graham told CBN News that the medical system in New York is overwhelmed. Samaritan’s Purse has set up in front of Mount Sinai Hospital, which is currently full.

“And our hospital, right there on Central Park and Fifth Avenue… they say when we open up tomorrow, we’re going to be full,” Graham said.

According to Samaritan’s Purse, the field hospital will be staffed with doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and water and sanitation experts. Crisis-trained chaplains with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association will be on hand helping to look after emotional and spiritual needs that arise.

“What struck me was an article in the paper, and a woman said her husband died alone. People are dying alone. And I thought, just give Samaritan’s Purse those who have no hope. And people who come into our hospital won’t die alone, because our doctors and nurses pray. We pray. If someone passes away, they won’t be dying alone. Our doctors and nurses are going to be praying with them, holding their hands, and loving them to the last breath,” Graham said.

“But we hope everyone that comes into our hospital, that they will walk out,” he added. “That’s our goal. And we’ve just got a great team. There are young doctors, young nurses, they’re ER people from all over the US and Canada.”

“We run into the fire, we don’t run away from it,” he continued. “We’re going to be in New York as long as we need to be there.”

SOURCE: Faithwire, Andrea Garrett; CBN News

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US intelligence officials have revealed that China has concealed the true extent of the Coronavirus outbreak in its country, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

Three unnamed US officials said a classified report submitted to the White House showed China lowered its public reporting on the number of cases and deaths.

The conclusion of the report is China’s numbers are fake, according to Bloomberg News, which cited two of the three officials. 

The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in December of 2019. At present, the communist country has reported only 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths according to data on the pandemic compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Those numbers fail to compare with the more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the US, which now has the largest outbreak in the world. 

Skepticism about China’s numbers has swirled throughout the crisis, fueled by official efforts to quash bad news in the early days and a general distrust of the government. Long lines of people waiting to collect the ashes of loved ones at funeral homes last week revived the debate.

FOR CBN NEWS CONTINUING COVERAGE ON COVID-19, CLICK HERE. 

The health system in Wuhan, the city where three-fourths of China’s victims died, was overwhelmed at the peak of the outbreak. Hospitals overflowed, patients with symptoms were sent home and there weren’t enough kits to test everyone. In any country, getting a complete picture in the fog of war is virtually impossible.

“The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 by country appears like a grim league table and draws the attention of many,” said Hsu Li Yang, who heads the infectious diseases program at the National University of Singapore. “However, it is important to understand that these numbers – be it from China, Italy, Singapore or the USA – are all inaccurate, and they are all underestimates to varying degrees of the actual number of infections.”

At a press briefing Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, pointed to the “missing” data from China. 

“The medical community interpreted the Chinese data as, this was serious but smaller than anyone expected,” Birx said at a press briefing. “Because, probably…we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that we see what happened to Italy and we see what happened to Spain.”

In a commentary for The Daily Signal website, Helle C. Dale, senior fellow in public diplomacy at The Heritage Foundation, writes, “Over the past decade, Beijing has invested heavily in extending its propaganda reach across the globe, which now is paying off.”

“The idea that some American and European news outlets are giving more credibility to the Chinese party line on the Coronavirus than they do to their own governments is nothing less than bizarre,” Dale observed. “Yet, here we are.”

Dale also cites the Media Research Center which said: “the same news media that continuously piles on Trump fails almost entirely to shine a critical light on the actions of the Chinese government.”

“What is much harder to comprehend is the readiness of the mainstream media to give Beijing a pass – all the while showing irrational disdain for the heroic efforts of America’s president and his administration,” she concluded. 

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The Gospel Coalition, a fellowship of evangelical churches in the Reformed tradition, is calling for all Christians to participate in a day to fast and pray this Saturday, April 4.

“We want to pray to the Lord in faith, trusting in the words of Psalm 10:17: ‘O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear,‘” the organization wrote on its website.

As billions of people around the world have watched with dread as the COVID-19 virus continues to spread — it has left people feeling anxious, uncertain about the future and most of all, helpless. 

The coalition reminds believers that we worship a mighty God who is not helpless. Christians should pray as the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:6, we ought not be anxious about anything, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” 

Why fast?  People who have willingly chosen to become Jesus’ disciples are required to partake in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. While we are not meant to nail ourselves on the cross and re-live the suffering by Jesus at Calvary, yet we are asked by God to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. We fast with only one motive and that is to seek God.

For those who are new to fasting, the coalition recommends this resource.

The day to fast and pray will have three primary prayer times. The Gospel Coalition team has created a prayer companion booklet that participants can view online or download as a PDF to help guide them through the day.

There will be three prayer times set during the day, including morning for personal prayer, midday prayer for community prayer and evening prayer for online prayer and worship.

The one-hour evening prayer time will be a live event on Facebook and YouTube at 7:00 pm Eastern/ 4:00 pm Pacific this Saturday, April 4. 

During this time will be prayers offered for:

Gospel Coalition President Julius Kim invites you to a day of fasting and prayer below:

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An Assemblies of God pastor died a week after testing positive for COVID-19.

Pastor Angel Escamilla of Calvary Church of Naperville in Naperville, Illinois, was hospitalized for pneumonia, the church announced Monday.

“It saddens my heart to tell you that Pastor Angel Escamilla has passed away from this life,” says Lead Pastor Marty Sloan on the church’s Facebook page. “I know that we prayed for his earthly healing in hopes that he would remain with us. Our prayers were not in vain, as they turned our hearts toward the hope we place in heaven.

“I personally found Pastor Angel to be a man of strong faith in the Lord, a man in the Word, and a man of GREAT prayer! If anyone ever spoke into the heavens in prayer, it was Pastor Angel. He will be forever missed on our team and in the church family.”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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Virginia’s governor on Monday ordered all higher education institutions to halt any in-person instruction amid the coronavirus pandemic, a move likely directed at Liberty University, which initially declined to stop all on-campus teaching.

The evangelical college in Lynchburg led by President Jerry Falwell Jr. has faced intense criticism over its decision to welcome students back to campus last week after their spring break.

As of Monday, the only in-person teaching taking place was flight instructing, and that was going to be suspended to comply with the governor’s order, said Liberty spokesman Scott Lamb.

At least three Liberty students have been tested for COVID-19, the school said in a statement Monday. One of those, a recent graduate who was taking additional online classes while living in the area with family, tested positive. One test was negative and one was pending, the statement said. Lynchburg currently has four confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to the latest information available from the state Department of Health.

Falwell, one of President Donald Trump’s earliest and most ardent high-profile supporters, has generally characterized concerns about the virus as overblown. He has accused the news media of stoking fear and suggested coverage was politically motivated to hurt the president.

The university has said it will comply with all applicable governmental directives and guidance concerning COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus that has crippled economies and upended daily life around much of the world.

But it also said two week ago that certain programs such as aviation, osteopathic medicine and nursing, and certain types of performance classes, like labs, could not be offered online, and that students could only take them in person. College officials said at the time that they would ensure no classes had more than 100 people.

Eli Best, a sophomore engineering major from Alexandria in northern Virginia, said he went home for spring break and returned to campus because he had class projects that he thought needed to be finished and required the use of the on-campus machine shop.

“I didn’t see any other way to complete them,” he said.

Best said Monday that all the shops and equipment he needed had since been shut down, and he returned home.

Northam urged Falwell last week to rethink “his message that invites and encourages students to return to campus.” Liberty responded by accusing Northam of making “false accusations.”

City officials and the top local public health official have fielded complaints from concerned residents and Liberty parents about the school’s response.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

SOURCE: The Associated Press

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Forty-three people fell ill after a revival at a Pentecostal church in Illinois. Of those 43, 10 have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Daily Herald reports that 80 people gathered at The Life Church of Glenview for a revival service on March 15, days before a statewide stay-at-home order was issued in Illinois. Pastor Anthony LoCascio says he considered canceling the meeting but decided not to, since the number of cases in the state were so low at that time. Plus, he reasoned, they were hosting an out-of-town guest speaker and had been promoting the event.

“A lot of people are sick,” LoCascio says. “My whole family has the same symptoms.”

When LoCascio woke up the morning after the service, he thought he had the flu. He had leg cramps and a fever of 102. A week later, he started coughing.

“My lungs felt very hardened and stiff, like leather,” he says.

SOURCE: Charisma News

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