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Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France
Source: Reuters
WORLD NEWS MARCH 30, 2020 / 3:05 AM / UPDATED 17 HOURS AGO
Special Report: Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France
Tangi Salaün
13 MIN READ
PARIS (Reuters) - From the stage of an evangelical superchurch, the leader of the gospel choir kicked off an evening of prayer and preaching: “We’re going to celebrate the Lord! Are you feeling the joy tonight?”
“Yes!” shouted the hundreds gathered at the Christian Open Door church on Feb. 18. Some of them had traveled thousands of miles to take part in the week-long gathering in Mulhouse, a city of 100,000 on France’s borders with Germany and Switzerland.
For many members of this globe-spanning flock, the annual celebration is the high point of the church calendar.
This time, someone in the congregation was carrying the coronavirus.
The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France - one of northern Europe’s hardest-hit countries - to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it. Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers.
-snip-
Special Report: Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France
Tangi Salaün
13 MIN READ
PARIS (Reuters) - From the stage of an evangelical superchurch, the leader of the gospel choir kicked off an evening of prayer and preaching: “We’re going to celebrate the Lord! Are you feeling the joy tonight?”
“Yes!” shouted the hundreds gathered at the Christian Open Door church on Feb. 18. Some of them had traveled thousands of miles to take part in the week-long gathering in Mulhouse, a city of 100,000 on France’s borders with Germany and Switzerland.
For many members of this globe-spanning flock, the annual celebration is the high point of the church calendar.
This time, someone in the congregation was carrying the coronavirus.
The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France - one of northern Europe’s hardest-hit countries - to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it. Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-church-spec/special-report-five-days-of-worship-that-set-a-virus-time-bomb-in-france-idUSKBN21H0Q2
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