Covid-19

[Guest]

2 hours ago, little2add said:

The cure is now worse than the disease.

The cure is worse than potential death ????

Cure is worse than those that have died and will die anywhere whatsoever in our world ????

Cure is worse than children loosing a parent or brother or sister etc to death due to COVID19 ????

............ s t r a n g e ......

I'm going outside for a smoke and Early Grey black tea..........man oh man, could I down a drink .................

Edited April 11, 2020 by BarbaraTherese

[little2add]

once [COVID-19] is ended, and we face the reality of the aftermath, coupled with financial difficulties and shortage of services… all of those things can rapidly… elevate the risk for a second pandemic… a mental health pandemic,”

https://cbsn.ws/2Vjw6tg

 

[Luigi]

An apt opinion piece from the New York Times featuring some Dominican friars who are hospital chaplains in NYC: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/coronavirus-catholics-religion.html

[Luigi]

Here's an update on the Cistercian monks in Irving, TX (Dallas metropolitan area), provided by the Dominican friars of Irving: 

#########################################################

Thomas Esposito

April 17 at 5:59 PM

Dear friends,

You may already have heard the news, but our monastery was hit hard recently by COVID-19. The grand total of monks who tested positive for COVID-19 is nine - including yours truly! Thankfully, no one is manifesting any dangerous symptoms at this point, and we are certainly grateful for your prayers!

Edited April 23, 2020 by Luigi

[Aloysius]

there is indeed a worry for the cure to be worse than the disease-- the UN World Food Agency has now warned that 130 million more people have been pushed to the brink of starvation as a result of the world's economic shutdown.  millions who were previously making their own living are now reliant on food banks and centrally planned handouts.  that's not to criticize anyone needing help--but it is to say, we don't want to live in a world where the majority of people can't work and care for themselves as much as possible.  there are meaningful things at stake here.  as well as the threat of mass famines throughout the world, with richer countries that might normally come to their aid focused in on themselves trying to feed their own ppl, aid to poorer areas may be less forthcoming.  we can only hope and pray the governments of the world will meet that challenge, but there are indeed many things worse than 100k or 200k or even a million ppl dying from a virus, as sad and tragic as that is (and I'm glad we're bringing those numbers down, just worried about the consequences of how we're doing it as we might be trading one bad thing for another)

wise and prudent leaders are needed to balance various interests here, and yes that does mean to accept the fact that some more people will die.  we could save tens of thousands from influenza every year if we locked down like this every year, and yet we don't, because we balance many other interests.  I'm not saying it wasn't the right decision to do it for this situation, which is of course threatening to cause more deaths than influenza (thanks be to God, it seems that the number of deaths now projected WITH social distancing will be equivalent to a bad year of flu without social distancing.  current projections of 60k-80k deaths in the US with social distancing, downgraded from the previous projections of 100k-200k with social distancing), if those projections hold up it will be good news... though it means the initial projections of 2 million possible deaths in the USA were vastly over-inflated, will be interesting to sift through the numbers later to find out by how much.

we need to balance many interests here.  if re-opening would lead to only 20k more deaths, that might be acceptable considering the millions of starvations it might help to avoid.  but we're at an impasse here as we've fallen into a kind of trolley problem, because if everything was open now and we were told we could close everything down and save 20k lives, most prudent ppl would say we probably shouldn't do that because of the other consequences.  but now we're faced with the question of whether re-opening would cause 20k more lives, and we feel more like we'd be sentencing those people to death to avoid the other problems.  it's an ethical conundrum, but the one thing we can't say is that leaders should just consider avoiding deaths from the virus to be their ONLY concern.  there are other concerns.  I'm not talking about rich peoples' pensions in mutual funds here, I'm talking about people on the brink of starvation... now, we could solve that problem in other ways while keeping the economy closed, though for how long we could manage that is uncertain.  but we do need to consider such issues.

[Anastasia]

2 hours ago, Aloysius said:

we need to balance many interests here.

I may sound very cynical but I do not believe that any state government truly thinks about human lives (it is enough to recall senseless wars etc). If those live are being weighed against the destruction of the economy I am sure that saving economy would be chosen. Hence, I cannot get rid of a sense of surreal.

So far, in my immediate circle there a woman who has a tumor in her pelvis. We do not know what it is but all was put on “stand by”; the woman is in pain and runs fever. I do not understand this. There are people, right now who need surgeries. Why are they not important?

(if anyone has a desire please pray for a woman called Galina; her family is trying now to get her into a hospital right now)

[Anastasia]

Also, right now in my country of origin (Russia) there a very strange “campaign like” situation is developing.  I am writing this simply to contribute to the world picture so to speak.

In the Orthodoxy we are never uniform (in fact we are notorious for our disorganization) so some Bishops decided that they will leave churches open for the Easter despite the “recommendations” of the state government. So, now we have a sudden surge of fake letters of supposed “nuns” from various monasteries who are infected (because they did not shut down their churches) and asking for assistance because they were forced by their abbess to tell that they are healthy while they are not…. Yet when people (journalists etc.) begin enquiring, they find that true nuns did not write those letters and in fact quite healthy.

Then we have a very strange story of the monastery in Moscow: about twenty of monks are ill with the virus and hospitalized but in a reasonable shape thank God; one remaining in the monastery monk, about eighty years old dies but not because of the virus but because he had a heart condition and could not get any help being left alone.

What bothers me is this: people die and, if their death has nothing to do with coronavirus, not much said about it and not much done.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Anastasia

[little2add]

One would think that in this day and age that this deadly virus could be better dealt with.  I can’t imagine how hard it is to leave a love one in the hospital who is dying of the virus, all alone and not be able to comfort them or say goodbye in person.  
It was said that the pandemic was worse in Italy because elderly grandparents did not want to die alone and stayed in their home with their family.  ( infecting some).  

I was just reading the obituary in today’s paper, all the services are private.   Some Obituaries add that a celebration of life of the receipt will be held at a later date.  
 

it seems like you can’t even die in peace, with this terrible plague. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by little2add

[Luigi]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

It was said that the pandemic was worse in Italy because elderly grandparents did not want to die alone and stayed in their home with their family.  ( infecting some).

The primary reason that the pandemic is worse in Italy is that so many Chinese citizens came to Milan for fashion week, just as the disease was spreading in China. That's one reason that it's so much worse in northern Italy than it is in southern Italy. 

I haven't read anything about elderly grandparents not wanting to die alone and staying in their home with their family, but it is still quite normal in Italy for an extended family to live in one home. Something like 80% of Italians own their own homes, and most of those are passed down from parents to children, with the parents continuing to live with their children. So in general, more people live in one home than the standard American nuclear family. Which means that more people were going out and having social contact with more people, thus increasing the likelihood that one or another of them would bring the virus into the home. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Luigi

[little2add]

My point is that if your hospitalized your put in a strict quarantine.  No visitors,  including family

even young children, no visitors, including parents

No (friends or family) funeral , etc
 

 

[Luigi]

From BBC News: 

Coronavirus: Putting priesthood on hold to return to medicine

Soon after qualifying as a junior doctor in Belfast in 2014, Christopher Gault left medicine to study to be a priest.

Although he is still continuing his studies as part of the Dominican Order, he decided to resume his medical duties while the Covid-19 pandemic continues.

He is currently working as a junior doctor at the Mater Hospital in Belfast.

He said: “I kind of felt that was the right thing to do at this time, I just want to help in any way I can.”

Video journalist: Niall McCracken

30 Apr 2020

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-52419863/coronavirus-putting-priesthood-on-hold-to-return-to-medicine?fbclid=IwAR0i8hNZdL8it6vUU3xGUjBAepMhB4LVN9DaaX4tTprxvsfuX46CTMrcBW0

[Luigi]

Here's a 7-second video of a Dominican student amusing himself in the cloister during the lockdown. Maybe he will amuse you, too!

 

[tinytherese]

What should people do if they need to go to confession because they're not in a state of grace, but have COVID-19 or suspect that they might? They could die in that state. Would they be able to have a confession where they're 6 feet apart from the priest and wear a mask or something? 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, tinytherese said:

What should people do if they need to go to confession because they're not in a state of grace, but have COVID-19 or suspect that they might? They could die in that state.

Tell God you're sorry and be thankful you're forgiven. Then go to Confession when you're not sick. I would rather be an atheist before I started viewing God like this. Religion is dumb.

[Guest]

Thank God for the Reformation. It was 100% needed. Will definitely be celebrating it this October. Much love to all Non-Catholic Christians reading this. Stay safe during the pandemic.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Guest