The reopening of the state's economy has been uneven.įor example, though restaurants were open for dining-in at 33% capacity on May 11, some elected not to, citing a lack of patrons, an inability to staff or inadequate time to prepare.
Staton Breidenthal/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP While he follows guidance from the Department of Health and the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church, Evans said if there was more guidance from the CDC on faith-based gatherings, he said he would "absolutely" follow it. And that was it."Įvans has not told his 200-person congregation when the church doors will open again, but it won't be until at least June. But what changed, what convinced me to shut the doors, was learning that you could be asymptomatic and still contagious. "At first we thought, if people wash their hands and stay home when they're sick, then it'll be okay, just like the flu or whatever. I was a preacher's kid, and the Bishop has never said we think you need to close your church."Īlthough he admitted his expertise is in theology not biology, he said he consulted with friends in the medical field, and everything changed when he learned about asymptomatic individuals. "Guidance from the Bishop's office started getting more and more strict, saying we're recommending that you close your church.
Though the CDC report made national news Tuesday, he said it was known among some of the state's spiritual leaders that the outbreak had manifested itself by mid-March. "I was terrified to find out that many got infected."Įvans closed his doors on March 13, a week after the outbreak occurred, but before cases were reported. "You've had all these churches since then that have kind of refused to follow the guidance, but at the time, they weren't being disobedient or foolish about it. At the same time, he said, congregations would abide by state restrictions - voluntarily. Hutchinson never banned church gatherings during the pandemic, arguing separation of church and state. "We were also still meeting when that happened, and so when that came out, I felt like we dodged the bullet," said Pastor Hammett Evans of the First United Methodist Church of Monticello. One-hundred-and-fifty miles to the south, another church leader in another rural Arkansas town defended the church cited in the CDC report, explaining that there was no guidance in early March to shut down places of worship.
This ultimately led to the spread of COVID-19, not only to the parishioners, but to the local community.įifty-six people were infected and three people died after attending one church event, before the scope of the outbreak was fully understood. The church involved was in a rural area of Cleburne County, in the north-central part of the state. First cases in Arkansas spread from churchĪ CDC report released Tuesday, underscoring the risks of states reopening, traced the first significant cases in Arkansas to a cluster of infections tied to a church in early March - before the first case was discovered in the state.
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