“A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
at the threat of five you shall flee,”
Isaiah 30:17
It seems to me the real pandemic today is the herd-reaction to hide in fear. We are an eye lash away from martial law. Minnesota has hot lines where you can turn in anyone you want for violating the Governor’s order to stay at home. You might say, “But that’s your opinion, Scott. What do you know, anyway?”
I don’t know much about medicine, so I have to trust the experts. Fortunately, the nation’s spokesperson, Dr. Fauci – you know, the guy standing next to the President – has published a piece just last week in The New England Journal of Medicine in which he and other experts said this:
This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively. (1)
We have been hearing that the US alone will experience up to 200,000 deaths. That would mean that 200,000,000 people in the US would contract the illness, almost two out of every three people.
It then boils down to how infectious this disease is. According to Fauci in this same article, the estimated basic reproduction number (Ro) is 2.2 which basically means that one sick person will infect two others. SARS had a Ro of around 3 (2). MERS was anywhere between 1 and 8 (3). Given the mortality rate was far, far higher for SARS or MERS, and both were far more spreadable, I wonder why we didn’t have global lockdowns for these.
Yet, the whole world is now hiding in their homes, knowing full well that the global economy will crumble. I think that is very interesting.
None of this should surprise students of the bible.
So, here I come around, once again, that God is fully aware of this. He is in control. From all the people I am talking to (and my voice is almost gone from being on the phone), I am finding that both believers and non-believers alike are willing to entertain the idea that God is trying to tell us something.
Repent.
Are you obeying Him? Listen, the church has PLENTY to repent of. On top of that list would be the fact that we don’t share the gospel. If God is such a good deal, why aren’t we talking about him all the time? – with EVERYONE?
Father, wake up your church! Amen.
1. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
2. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/scientists-warn-ncov-more-infectious-sars-experts-have-doubts
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5930778/
Copyright © 2020 Scott Powers