After finding 40 churches connected to around 650 cases of the coronavirus, The New York Times is calling Sunday worship services “a major source” of COVID-19 cases.
“The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and Missouri,” reads the Times piece. “It has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed new limits on numbers of worshipers.”
The story does, of course, link to legitimate cases — like Calvary Chapel in San Antonio, where around 50 congregants and staffers have come down with mild coronavirus infections, and Kanakuk Kamps in Missouri, which has been hit with more than 80 cases of COVID-19. The most heartbreaking case included in the Times article is that of Carsyn Davis, a Fort Myers, Florida, high schooler who, suffering from asthma and a rare neurological disorder, passed away after being infected with the coronavirus. The authors of the piece, though, then extrapolate that those anecdotal instances are proof churches are spreading the virus nationwide in disproportionate numbers.
Read more at 650 Cases Out of 3 Million: The NY Times Falsely Accuses Churches as ‘Major Source’ of COVID-19
