Coronavirus: Stay at home, skip church if sick, Pastor warns members
Ahead of Sunday service (today), Andy Stanley, the pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Decatur City Church sent a letter to his congregants on Friday titled “Permission to stay home!”
Stanley who made the statement amid growing concerns for the spread of the coronavirus, he’s asking anyone who has traveled to affected countries, been exposed to someone with the flu or who feels sick themselves to stay home from church.
“If you’ve been exposed to a person with the coronavirus or the flu or have recently traveled to a CDC Level 2 or 3 country (China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Hong Kong, or Japan), please take a couple of Sundays off. If you or your family members are experiencing or have recently experienced symptoms associated with the flu or the common cold (fever, persistent cough, headache, chills, or unexplained rash), we ask that you take a couple of Sundays off as well,” Stanley said in his email.
He said the staff and volunteers are taking the following steps to make sure the churches are clean and safe for everyone who attends.
-Staff and volunteers follow hand-washing procedures, and children are instructed to wash their hands after using the bathroom and before eating.
-Volunteers follow posted safe and sanitary diaper-changing procedures.
-Hand sanitizer is located throughout the building.Staff remove children from the classroom if they appear to be sick. Parents are immediately paged to pick them up.
So far, nineteen people have died in the U.S. from the virus. The number of infections in the U.S. is now above 400.