Those We Put At Risk

I'm very enthusiastic about the need to begin helping people --encouraging people--supporting people --and help businesses and charities and congregations re-open.

Given that, we also have to consider how we're putting several "new groups" of people at risk by doing this. Priests, Rabbi's, and Ministers / Elders are going to resume, in some way, coming into direct contact with members of their congregations. A percentage of those clergy have underlying health conditions. Additionally, a number of clergy, particularly in "mainline" denominations such as Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, UCC, as well as Rabbi's --are over 60 years old. Around Easter, I was fortunate enough to interview the Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Bishop Robert McManus. In the course of that conversation, he related that over 50% of the active priests in that diocese are over 60 years old, putting them in the "at-risk" category--underlying conditions or not. While many of us want desperately to attend services / Mass again, doing so puts a lot of clergy at risk.

We're also approaching decision time when it comes to re-opening schools in the fall. One of the considerations that I'm sure superintendents are having to think about is the age of staff, including teachers, principals, and janitors, among others. A lot of discussion, and appropriately so, is going on about students, as well as their families. In many schools, we also have staff who, in a percentage reflecting the rest of the population, have health conditions. My guess, and I'm reading more reports that verify this, is that a significant percentage of teaching staff is over 55. I've read estimates that 20% of current teachers might choose to retire rather than be exposed to the dangers of the virus. Other staff percentages will vary from community to community.

So, yes, we need to sort out how to re-open every entity, in some way. I do think we're going to see a lot of "starts and pauses" as we identify situations we've never dealt with before. Going to be a long haul!