Ooops! Wil beat me to it.

One of the first deaths in Virginia from coronavirus was a 66-year-old Christian “musical evangelist” who fell ill while on a trip to New Orleans with his wife. As the Friendly Atheist’s Bo Gardiner points out, Landon Spradlin had previously shared opinions that the pandemic was the result of “mass hysteria” from the media.

On March 13, Spradlin shared a misleading meme that compared coronavirus deaths to swine flu deaths and suggested the media is using the pandemic to hurt Trump. In the comments, Spradlin acknowledged that the outbreak is a “real issue,” but added that he believes “the media is pumping out fear and doing more harm than good”

“It will come and it will go,” he wrote. […] – Raw Story, Mar. 26, 2020

Donald Shipp, a deacon at First Assembly of God church in Greers Ferry, about 75 miles north of Little Rock, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that 34 people who attended the event in early March at the Cleburne County church had tested positive for the coronavirus, and that an unknown number of others were awaiting test results.

Mark Palenske, a pastor at the church, said in a lengthy Facebook post late last week that he and his wife, Dena, were among those to test positive for COVID-19.

He said that when such a virus spreads on the other side of the world, “your first inclination is to assume that time and distance are on your side.”

But “that false assumption” recently caught up with him and his wife, he said.

The couple and dozens of others from their church initially could not get tested, according to Palenske.

These church pastors are keeping church open because that is their money they do not want to lose. Anybody following them risking their life is a fool. […]

And let the Church say AAAMEN!

A young man whose bold defiance of social distancing guidelines while on spring break in Miami drew widespread attention — “If I get corona, I get corona,” he declared in a television interview — apologized this week for his comments.

“I wasn’t aware of the severity of my actions and comments,” the man, Brady Sluder, said on Instagram on Sunday. “I’d like to take this time to own up to the mistakes i’ve made and apologize to the people I’ve offended.”

Mr. Sluder, who The Associated Press said is 22 and lives in Milford, Ohio, said in the post that he, like many people, has “elderly people who I adore more than anything in the world and other family members who are at risk.” – New York Times, Mar. 24, 2020