To the editor:

Every Sunday since last summer, a COVID-19 laboratory experiment has been taking place at John MacArthur’s church in California, where approximately 7,000 christians, across all age groups, gather to play musical instruments, sing, and worship God. Masks and social distancing are not the norm.

We have not seen  high numbers of illness, hospitalizations and deaths there. At one point there were three mild cases among the 7,000. Why? Is God protecting them? Are they just lucky?

Six days a week in Calumet, another COVID-19 laboratory experiment is taking place at Cafe Rosetta, where customers go to have a beverage, snack, or meal while they socialize. Masks and social distancing are not the norm.

Has their workforce and customer base declined due to illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths? No. Their customer base has grown. How do we explain this?

Between these two places we have seen 1,000’s and 1,000’s of canaries going into the coal mines and coming out fine. How can we explain this?

Their acts of peaceful civil disobedience have shown us that we don’t need to be afraid.

In the U.S. between 7 and 8,000 people die on average every day from all causes. In April 2020, the U.N. estimated that an additional 130 million people in the world will starve this year as a result of the economic damage caused by the lockdowns. That’s 356,000 people starving every day on average. If you read music, imagine a march playing at 120 beats per minute and start clapping out 1/8th notes and do that for one minute while imagining a person dying from starvation every time you clap.

We could have protected the frail and immunocompromised, while letting those who were willing and able, to help keep the global economy running. That would have been most of us keeping things going.

We need to course correct with haste for the sake of the billions in the world whose lives depend on us.