Message from the Public Health Taskforce

As the Covid pandemic continues, the members of our diocesan Public Health Task Force continue to meet and discuss ways to keep our communities safe, and pursue our mission in the name of Jesus Christ. We are grateful that our congregations have worked so hard on public health and safety issues for the nearly two years of the pandemic so far, and most churches have figured out best practices for keeping our people safe.

During the pandemic, the transformations in our communities have been inspiring, in many ways. You have worked hard to make online worship, formation, and fellowship opportunities available to help people stay safe, and you have made special efforts to stay in touch with your members and offer support and pastoral care. Although many people are still joining worship from home, some congregations are seeing growth as new folks are joining who have discovered our churches online. I am glad to see the dedication to Christ’s mission that continues throughout our diocese. As your bishop, I am deeply grateful to all of you for your inspired witness to the God who brings healing and reconciliation to our world.

We are now at a point where Omicron cases are surging and the pandemic may be in the process of turning into an endemic disease: one which sees periodic surges in infections, but our society learns how to deal with it. We are not yet to that point, and it is still important to maintain safety precautions, particularly for unvaccinated people, who comprise the overwhelming majority of hospitalized patients.

Our Public Health Task Force has some suggestions to help maintain safety:

• GET VACCINATED AND BOOSTED. There is no better way to protect yourself and those you love from a still-deadly disease.
• In our diocese, we are still requiring masks for indoor worship, except while someone is speaking to read, pray, preach, or celebrate.
• We have still not restored drinking from the common cup, or letting each worshiper intinct. It is fine to offer intinction from the common cup if the intinction is done by a clergy member who has washed his/her hands and who places the intincted wafer in people’s hands (not on their lips). Some congregations have worked out other safe ways to offer communion in both kinds, which I encourage.
• The Task Force suggests that congregations ask your members to avoid passing a physical sign of the Peace; encourage distancing; limit in-person attendance to 75% of capacity, and hold coffee hour outdoors.
• Please encourage staff and worshipers to stay home at any sign of sickness or exposure to Covid in the household. For clergy, please contact the diocese if you need assistance with finding supply clergy.
• Several of our congregations have made a temporary decision to go to online-only worship. This is not the right decision for every congregation, but we give thanks that it is an option for some.

A group of folks in our diocese is planning for ways to thank our healthcare workers for their heroic and exhausting work over the course of the pandemic. If you are interested in helping with this project, please contact Canon Jason Evans at JEvans@edsd.org. As The Rev. Regan Schutz, rector of Christ Church Coronado and a member of the Public Health Task Force, says, “It’s time we notice the people whom society is not serving. These are the essential workers paid hourly who cannot stay home and still feed their families—instead they have to choose one or another. This societal shortfall is one of the reasons we are still doing pandemic today. Now is the time that we engage in working for justice, in loving our neighbors, in being the church for a weary world who desperately needs Jesus right now.”

I am so grateful for all of you, and so inspired by your witness to the love of Christ in such a difficult time. I give special thanks for the work of our Public Health Task Force:

David Ostrander, M.D., chair

Cheryl Anderson, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Public Health, UC San Diego

Judy Burton, R.N., member of St. Margaret’s Palm Desert

The Rev. Cindy Campos, Deacon at St. Dunstan’s San Diego

Jamal Gwathney, M.D., member of St. Peter’s Del Mar

The Rev. Roger Haenke, R.N., Rector of St. John’s Chula Vista

The Rev. Brian Johnson, N.P., Vicar of St. John’s Indio

The Rev. Regan Schutz, Rector of Christ Church Coronado

Cheryl Wilson, R.N., CEO of St. Paul’s Senior Services

In Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Susan Brown Snook

Bishop Diocesan, Episcopal Diocese of San Diego