Amish survived COVID-19 better than most by not locking down, ceasing church gatherings: report
By: Ryan Foley Christian Post Reporter
An interesting study and report. The Amish seem to have done things in a way to both keep cases down and not sacrifice their lifestyle or religious beliefs.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has made it through the coronavirus pandemic without experiencing a catastrophic loss of life despite their refusal to adopt many of the safety precautions portrayed as necessary to prevent widespread loss of life, according to a new report.
While officials in most U.S. cities ordered businesses and churches to close for several months in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, the Amish continued working and never stopped worshiping together at church.
On her news magazine series “Full Measure” Sunday, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reported on the Amish community’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which differed significantly from the approach taken by the rest of the country.
She described the Amish as a “Christian group that emphasizes the virtuous over the superficial.” In an effort to live a “virtuous” life, many in the group refrain from driving and using electricity.
Attkisson traveled to Lancaster County, well-known for its large Amish population, to talk to locals about how they handled the pandemic. One person she spoke to, an Amish Mennonite named Calvin Lapp, explained: “There are three things the Amish don’t like: And that’s government; they won’t get involved in government. They don’t like the public education system; they won’t send their children to education. And ... they also don’t like the health system.”
“Those three things are all part of what COVID is,” he said. Attkisson noted that “after a short shutdown last year, the Amish chose a unique path that led to COVID-19 tearing through at warp speed.” The community gathered for a religious celebration in May 2020, where they all took communion.
Lapp then described how the Amish take communion: “They dunk their wine into a cup, and they take turns to drink out of the cup. So you go the whole way down the line and everybody drinks out of that cup, so if one person has coronavirus, the rest of the church is going to get coronavirus.”
While he acknowledged that “everybody got coronavirus,” Lapp defended the community’s approach: “It’s a worse thing to quit working than dying. But to shut down and say that we can’t go to church, we can’t get together with family, we can’t see our old people in the hospital, we got to quit working … it’s going completely against everything that we believe.”
About a year after the coronavirus pandemic first broke out in the U.S., national news outlets and The Associated Press wire service reported that the Lancaster County Amish community had reached herd immunity, meaning that “a large part of the population had been infected with COVID-19 and became immune.” However, precise data is difficult to come across because the Amish were hesitant to publicize coronavirus cases in their community.
Steve Nolt, a scholar on Amish and Mennonite culture, told Attkisson that in some cases, “Amish people ... refused to go to the hospital, even when they were very sick because if they went there, they wouldn’t be able to have visitors, and it was more important to be sick, even very sick, at home and have the ability to have some people around you than to go to the hospital and be isolated.”
Nolt added that “even those who ... believed that they had COVID tended not to get tested. Their approach tended to be ‘I’m sick, I know I’m sick, I don’t have to have someone else tell me I’m sick,’ or a concern that if they … got a positive test, they would then be asked to really dramatically limit what they were doing in a way that … might be uncomfortable for them.”
“There’s no evidence of any more deaths among the Amish than in places that shut down tight. Some claim there were fewer here,” Attkisson maintained. “That’s without masking, staying at home” or taking the coronavirus vaccine.
Lapp highlighted that the absence of a prolonged shutdown meant that the Amish “made more money in the last year than we ever did” as the rest of the country experienced economic hardships because of lockdowns. He described 2020 as “our best year ever.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post.
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They are a closed society, very little interaction with the "general public" so, in essence, they are always on lock down. Ridiculous and one sided/biased article.
They also do not have superspreader events.
so you agree that attending regular full capacity church services are not super spreader events…
Amish don't go to church. They have their religious gatherings in their barns every other week.
It’s still an indoor gathering of a church community/congregation.
I am referring to Trump political rallys, clubs, concerts, gatherings like Sturgis, and any event where people are packed in like sardines. But considering that over a half dozen anti vax/anti mask religious leaders have died from Covid, churches have been super spreader gatherings. About the only time the Amish gather in a non religious practice large groups is when they have a barn raising.
Usually, a family elder oversees the worship for their own family.
And yet we’ve been having Major League Baseball all year in the big cities with no real problems and lord Fauci critical only of events like Sturgis, college football, and NASCAR which largely occur in smaller town middle America that the bi coastal elites look down on.
Then there were the covid sanctioned mass riots and looting that were ok while let’s us pray worship events in the very same cities were supposed to be super spreader events. Large democrat events ok, Republicans /Christians together are super spreaders. And people wonder why biden, Fauci, democrats have no credibility on the issue.
That wasn’t what was described in the article
I am going by what a close friend who became Amish told me. That is how worship is conducted in her family.
So you're deflecting by introducing in a subject not in the original post for what reason?
Even their saint Dennis Prager has Co-Vid.
Good question.
He had a breakthrough case against his vaccine?
But they did interact and continued to work and trade with outsiders to make a living. They didn’t shut down their work. They didn’t wear masks or social distance. They didn’t get vaccinated. Almost every one of them got covid but not all at once. They now have herd immunity and had a lower death rate than the general population. An interesting report.
You can't shut down a farm. They did wear masks when the interested with outside(English) societies because they were required to.
They do not have herd immunity.
Obviously, the Amish are Jesus' and God's chosen people. If you aren't Amish you're gonna burn in Hell.
I just did business with a local Amish sawmill, about a half hour ago, he was unconcerned when I told him that both my brothers came down with covid about 5-6 days ago and I had been exposed but yet to have any symptoms. They have drivers drive them farther than the horse and carriage and he was still needing to stop for grain on his way back. So they do business with the community other than just the Amish.
Amish are very rural so the vaccine doesn't spread as it does in more developed societies.
That is exactly my point.
Yet they still achieved herd immunity.
The Amish did not achieve herd immunity. Holmes country is one of the highest rates of Covid19 in Ohio and the lowest rates of vaccination.
So you never heard of Rumspringa?
"...so if one person has coronavirus, the rest of the church is going to get coronavirus.”"
Hospitals were crushed the way it was but I can't imagine the mess if an entire country took that irresponsible approach. Who would stack the bodies?
I often offer the quip, "No mask, no shot - no hospital; go off and die alone. Apparently, they worked that model but their social dynamic is much different from Main St.
...but they are right on the uselessness of testing.
They must be more healthy than the general population due to their lifestyle choices, exercise from work, and diet and had few or no co morbidities to create the worst cases the big north east cities had. So since almost all of them caught it, most of them had no or few symptoms and those that got seriously sick and died must have been mostly the oldest of them.
Amish also pull their teeth in favor of false teeth...
Wooden Dentures, whittled just as God intended!
How does that square with
You can't be both "keeping cases down" and having everybody get coronavirus.
They kept hospitalizations and death rates down, total cases not so much, thus their herd immunity.
You should really stop seeding or commenting on topics you actually know nothing about.
Especially any topics involving the natural sciences.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is still the biggest threat to humans by humans ever.
Global warming is a giant hoax…
Jeebus
I thought what you said here were the "crazy shit" from 20 years ago - YOU REALLY BELEIVE GLOBAL WARMING IS A GIANT HOAX????
Guess not
How Old Are you, Jefferson? 106 years old or something?
This is the only explanation I have for your your fucked up "hoax" - just saying.
Have they?
I would say it seems that the statistics don't support that. The Amish, like the rest of us, saw more deaths in 2020.
Global warming is a hoax. Climate change caused primarily by mankind is a fraud. Climate change is cyclical caused mostly by solar and other naturally occurring events.
Comment 5.1.5 is reactionary propaganda. It is a hoax, a fraud and a lie.
5.1.2 is also reactionary propaganda.
Yes, it is.
Amish don't avoid medical care. My mother had to take an Amish kid who was mowing the neighbor's grass to the ER because he put his hand under the mower while it was running to clear a clog. He nearly lost his hand.