How did 2 people with COVID-19 infect 35? This church offers dramatic lesson, CDC says

A pastor and his wife held an in-person church service in a rural county in Arkansas back in March, without knowing they were infected with COVID-19, federal officials say.

Weeks later, it was discovered that 35 of the 92 people who attended the service tested positive for coronavirus and three of them died, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it didn’t stop there: Those 35 people went on to infect 26 other community members, one of whom died, the CDC report said.

The report’s findings add to the growing stack of evidence that large community gatherings, like church services, pose an increased threat to public health during the coronavirus pandemic, even in a community as small as 25,000, according to the CDC.

The couple attended church events March 6-8 and later developed symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath and fever on March 10 and 11, the CDC report said. Health officials were able to determine that the church attendees spread COVID-19 to others they had contact with in the community through contact tracing, according to the CDC.

“This outbreak highlights the potential for widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, both at group gatherings during church events and within the broader community,” the CDC report said. “These findings underscore the opportunity for faith-based organizations to prevent COVID-19 by following local authorities’ guidance and the U.S. Government’s Guidelines … regarding modification of activities to prevent virus transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

After the pastor and his wife realized they had contracted the virus, they canceled services, Business Insider reported. The CDC released this report in the context of many churches arguing they should be allowed to reopen, according to Business Insider.

For example, religious leaders in New York appealed to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow faith-based organizations to restart activities and services while enforcing social-distancing practices, Business Insider reported.

“It’s less about being a church, temple or mosque - it’s more about being a gathering,” Cuomo said, according to Politico. “And that’s basically going to be according to the guidance on large gatherings. Look, large gatherings are where this first started...It was one infected person who went to a couple of events around a religious ceremony. But the last thing you want is 100, 200 people in close proximity.”

While COVID-19 can be transmitted through infected surfaces, the CDC recently reported that the virus spreads primarily through person-to-person contact and is not as easily spread by touching infected surfaces, Yahoo! News reported.