SARS scare clouds Easter
SCARBOROUGH, ON–Nearly 500 members of a Catholic group were quarantined after Ontario public health officials identified a cluster of SARS infections that spread during a mass and prayer meeting, infecting 31 people, including three children and three doctors.
This incident brought the total number of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases to 236 in the week leading up to Easter. The numbers included 29 people connected with the BLD Covenant community, a Catholic organization that spans the Toronto area. Toronto medical officer of health Sheela Basrur says the group was "close knit" and that allowed for the transmission of the virus in close quarters.
She says the initial case in the BLD cluster appears to be linked to the initial outbreak at Scarborough Grace hospital, where the city's second SARS patient died recently. "We added a counsellor full-time to help staff cope and they are able to turn to their hospital chaplain," says Basrur.
Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church (SCBC) and Scarborough Chinese Community Church, located minutes from the hospital, saw what one pastor would only refer to as "a significant decline" in attendance in the weeks following reports of the outbreak.
"We have had several sermons about how to cope with fear," says Ted Tham, pastor to the English-speaking congregation. "We have also taken precautions such as having seniors programs and kindergarten programs suspended because these groups may be most vulnerable."
Tham says the church Web site (www.scbc.com) updates members on the virus and scheduling and prayer requests. He says congregations in the neighbourhood are all concerned about the virus and that English, Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking congregations in the area are equally cautious of church attendance.
Although no one in Tham's church has fallen ill, some work in the nearby hospital and are taxed by the psychological pressure of the quarantine and the need for heightened sanitation standards.
But SCBC, and other area churches, have taken measures to prevent the virus from spreading during their worship services. Several have temporarily replaced their common communion cups and tearing bread from a loaf with individually sealed portions. (Each wafer is in one compartment and the serving of grape juice in another.) This interim measure cost one congregation several hundred dollars. Some are also postponing baptisms or adding extra chlorine to their baptismal tanks.
"Our congregation is doing things discretely," says Tham. "We don't want to cause fear or anxiety but we also don't want to place people at added risk."
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