2021.08.29 | Moses & Mercury: Co-existing with Chaos
“Moses & Mercury: Co-existing with Chaos”
Rev. Marvin Lance Wiser
Eden United Church of Christ | Hayward, CA
29 August 2021
May the peace of Christ be with you. I’m Pastor Marvin Wiser and as many of you know, I have had the privilege of directing many of our COVID-19 ministries and direct response teams for the past year. So far, our teams have reached more than 6,000 COVID-19 positive cases and their close contacts, helped them to isolate and/or quarantine successfully, provide healthcare education and contact emergency services when necessary, distributed and delivered more than 700,000 pounds of groceries and prepared meals and over 4,000 packs of diapers. We’ve taken on about 1,000 rent relief applications, and have referred $2.5 million in County financial assistance to our neighbors in isolation. We’ve also helped to vaccinate about 4,000 of our community members. This has been a 7-days per week operation for a year now, involving a team of almost 50.
And we were set to wrap all of this work up in 48 hours. That’s right, we were originally set to finish this work this coming Tuesday, August 31st. This June when cases were so low, many of us were anxious to hang up many of our myriad hats that we don throughout any given week. But then we looked out beyond ourselves and our immediate context and saw what was happening in India and the U.K., and we knew deep down that even though all around us people were celebrating opening up and victory over COVID, we knew that another chapter, another ominous phase of the pandemic was right around the corner.
Today, instead of preparing exit interviews and end of program reports, we are digging in and building out for the fall and winter. As the CDC says, the Delta variant has truly been a game changer. Dr. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was part of the World Health Organization's team that helped eradicate smallpox, said the delta variant of the coronavirus is "maybe the most contagious virus" ever. Whereas with the original or wild strain of COVID-19, on average an infected person would infect about 2-3 other people, with the Delta variant an infected person will probably infect about 8 other persons. This is a significant increase in transmissibility. And now we’re bearing witness to this fact.
A couple months ago we were at about 4,000 daily cases and 37 daily deaths in the U.S. Now we are again above 150,000 cases per day and 1,000 daily deaths and rising. That’s almost a 38-fold increase in just two months. San Francisco, one of the highest vaccinated counties in the country, itself experienced an 18-fold increase in cases within a 6 week period from mid-June to August. And 36% of their positive cases last month were fully vaccinated individuals.
The South is being ravaged- it’s far worse than what it was in the winter months. Many states are now reporting double the cases that they had during the December-January surge. Many regions no longer have ICU beds nor pediatric ICU beds. Florida reported more than 26,000 cases in one day this week, a new record, and more than 8,400 students are in isolation or quarantine in just one school district in one Florida county. And closer to home, in Los Angeles school district in the first week, 6,500 students found themselves in the same situation. Oregon too currently has more people hospitalized than ever and deaths are up 149%. Hospital staff in many regions are again reduced to tears and are at a breaking point, even staging walk-outs.
Delta is not only more transmissible, it is also more aggressive. The World Health Organization states that there is an increase of hospitalizations associated with Delta. It has a shorter incubation period, so it makes our jobs as Case Investigators and Contact Tracers harder, as often, we don’t have enough time to let people know to quarantine. Therefore, many are already infectious before they begin isolating. To complicate matters worse, current guidelines do not require fully vaccinated persons to quarantine after a COVID-19 exposure, but if they do become infectious, we as fully vaccinated folks can indeed and do spread the Delta strain.
While we’re faring much better than the South, this week in Alameda County we had our highest daily cases so far during this Delta surge. 7-day average cases are up 24%. Our positivity rate looks better as it dropped 1%, but this is because testing volume is up 12% in the past 7 days. ICU beds used for COVID is also up 6%. And not surprisingly school exposures are now in the triple digits, overwhelming schools.
Church, it looks as if we’re going to be going through it yet again. Just like the Israelites in the wilderness when they had come upon vipers endemic to the natural environment of the Sinai Peninsula, that is modern-day Jordan. Upon traveling through the area en route to the Promised Land, many Israelites were bitten by venomous snakes. And many succumbed to the bites and ultimately died. And so the Israelites prayed to God that God might rid them of the snakes. And God did exactly that, as God was asked-- wait, but that’s not really how the story goes, is it? That’s what we would like to think, it’s what we want. A life free from danger, free from chaos. But that was not God’s response. God directed Moses to place a bronze serpent on his staff and have all who were infected look upon it for healing. God’s answer was ultimately not one of eradication, but of containment, of teaching them how to co-exist with chaos- just as it was with entering the Promised Land. The Israelites told the story that they eradicated the peoples of the Land, the Canaanites, but they wound up co-existing, as chaotic as it was. Moses, a Prophet, God’s mouthpiece to the people, a trusted messenger, alerted the community to a present danger and institutionalized healthcare education for all in the form of an ancient Health Officer Order- Beware Serpents!
You may recognize this symbol. It has endured for millennia. From Moses’ Bronze Age usage it took the form of the Rod of Asclepius in the Iron Age, the Greek God of healing and medicine. Today it is plastered on the side of medical buildings and even overlays the world on the official banner of the World Health Organization. You may have seen this in the U.S., but more often than not, in the U.S., medical associations and hospitals actually erroneously use the Caduceus, the winged staff in which two serpents are entwined of the Greek God Hermes and the Roman God Mercury, the messenger Gods. It’s roots predate Moses, going back to ancient Sumer. While this staff’s meaning is immersed in commerce and not medicine, I think both have valuable import for us today.
On the one hand, the staff of Moses is meant to portray both preventative and medicinal measures, and the staff of Mercury is imbued with a sense of trade and sharing information. The wings set above the staff mimic those of Mercury, the messenger. In imaginative formulation of the Bible’s own messengers, malakhim or angeles, we too picture them with wings, spreading good news. And that’s what we as a church have been called to do. To continue the ministry of Moses, Jesus’ healing ministry, offering healthcare for all. Our healthcare educators, our CICT team members, our Emergency Food distributors, Quarantine & Isolation Support Team, Resource Navigators, Vaccine Navigators, and Rent Relief Application processors are angels in this holy tradition, spreading the life-giving news of health and wellbeing, sharing resources to build beloved community.
And concurrent with all of our efforts, we too have prayed, together we have prayed, as did our spiritual ancestors, for God to rid us of this plague, to eradicate this chaos. Just a couple of months ago some of us were certain that we were receiving the answer that we wanted to our prayer. But now we find ourselves in a similar situation to the Israelites in the wilderness, called by God to look at and into the very chaos that is attacking us for answers.
God asked Moses to tell the people to recognize the serpent, to behold it and to know it. With venomous serpents, it is only through being bitten, and then examining the bitter that we can arrive at antitoxins or an antidote. The same can be said for an airborne virus. We have to go through it and not look away. And now, through the revelation of God that is science, we too have vaccines against COVID-19. If we only believe. It may not have been the answer that we wanted at our time of crying out to God, a burning out of the virus or its miraculous eradication- we might have though who needs Delta when I have the Alpha and Omega- but instead we too received an answer of containment and guidance for how to co-exist with chaos. We too have to act our part. And a vaccine is nothing short of a miracle itself, in partnership with God.
This week the FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine. Moderna and J&J announcements are assuredly on the way. Also announced this week was the news that the general public would become eligible for the booster or third dose on Sept. 20th. Persons may receive it 8 months after their second dose; however, this may be revised to 6 months. It is already available for the immunocompromised. “Everyone aged 65 and older, fully vaccinated 6 months ago with a weakened immune system should receive a booster right away” says epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant.
The need for another shot has been shown through various studies that demonstrate that vaccine immunity attenuates after 6 months, that is it tapers off. Immunity received from having COVID-19 itself dissipates just after 3 months. Delta may also be more vaccine resistant. Studies show that current vaccine efficacy is now between 64-87% against Delta symptomatic disease and 88-91% against Delta severe disease or hospitalization, but this will begin to taper off after 6 months of being fully vaccinated. This doesn’t mean that the vaccine is not working. Quite the contrary. For example, 4 out of 5 deaths in Louisiana are unvaccinated persons. The vaccine is working. Though, with our current vaccines and the increased transmissibility with Delta, population immunity or herd immunity is much much further away and may not be attainable at all now. For now we will have to simply co-exist.
It is also our prayer that the vaccine will be available for children before winter. Now is the most dangerous time of the pandemic for children, as schools reopen. Almost 1 in 3 new cases last week in Louisiana were children, some entire regions in the south have run out of pediatric ICU beds. In the past 2 weeks positive cases among children 0-17 years of age in Alameda County have increased by 350%, going from 50 per day to 175 per day and increasing, and school exposures are well into the triple digits. Children cannot yet receive the vaccine. But others can.
More than 100,000 people are in the hospital right now in the U.S. due to COVID, the most since January- the overwhelming majority unvaccinated. In great part due to misinformation and fear. People would rather take an unregulated deworming medicine for large farm animals to self-medicate than trust the FDA or their government. While thousands have died of a lack of access, thousands more have and will die simply because of a lack of trust. Nationally, COVID cases are up 142% in nursing homes since July 15th. This is exacerbated because 40% of nursing home staff nationally still remain unvaccinated.
We’ve got to take one from Moses’ playbook here. May we employ the rods of Moses and Mercury to heal and to spread that healing world over. We are asked to behold and believe. To be messengers of life-giving news. Today, only 55% of California is fully vaccinated, and very few have the soon to be needed third dose. Unfortunately, Ashland-Cherryland and Hayward remain among the most affected areas in our county. Because of this we continue our work. There will be no hanging of hats just yet. CICT, Food Distribution, Rent Relief, Resource Navigation, Outreach, Healthcare Education, and Vaccine Coalition work will continue.
And while we may have missed the early opportunity at population immunity and eradication, rest assured that we can co-exist with chaos. We can allow it to make us a better society if we let it, one in which care for neighbor is a central tenet. Remember, that it was in the presence of clear and present danger that our Scripture was formulated and its emphasis on care for the widow, orphan, and immigrant was canonized in community.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We have before us a long way to go, as did the Israelites before they made it to the Promised Land. Neither venomous snakes nor rambunctious neighbors were eradicated- despite what they would like us to think. They learned to co-exist with chaos, and so too must we. The very next verse in our reading this morning, Numbers 21:10 begins with, “The Israelites moved on.” May we learn to do so too, but not too fast, not too fast- taking as many with us and endeavoring to leave no one behind, no matter how young, how old, how same, how different. All deserve to receive good, healing news.
For just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
May we own this ancient calling. Amen.