America will be marking Ash Wednesday in alternative ways today as the threat of spreading COVID-19 takes its toll on religious traditions on the first day of the Lenten season.
Catholic priests have been told by the Vatican to skip making the traditional sign-of-the cross with ashes on worshiper’s foreheads. Some churches are offering drive-thru ashes and do-it-yourself, bagged ashes. The Vatican asks that priests sprinkle the ashes upon the heads of their congregants, a customary practice at the Vatican and in Italy.
“You never see the Pope with ashes on his forehead,” said the Rev. Steven B. Giuliano. at Our Lady of Lourdes in Wilmington, Delaware. “They are always placed atop his head.”
Ash Wednesday comes one day after “Fat Tuesday” – Mardi Gras – which also saw big changes this year. Parades were canceled and the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans, usually packed for the parties, were relatively quiet. Bourbon Street was quiet. Instead, locals decorated their homes in festive colors.
“Thank you all for embracing the Carnival spirit through your creativity and innovation,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.
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In the headlines:
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►The European Union announced an agreement to buy a further 300 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine. Hours earlier, Pfizer and BioNTech said they had signed a deal to deliver an additional 200 million doses of their vaccine to the bloc.
►Reparations could have public health benefits for Black individuals and the entire nation, a study led by Harvard Medical School researchers suggests. Their model for Louisiana showed that greater equity between Blacks and whites might have reduced COVID-19 infection transmission rates by up to 68% for every person in the state.
►A genomic mutation associated with protection against severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals, researchers reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neandertals evolved in western Eurasia 500,000 years ago and subsequently lived largely separated from the ancestors of modern humans in Africa.
►Doctors across the nation have been seeing a striking increase cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C, an inflammatory syndrome that strikes some young people, usually several weeks after infection by the coronavirus, The New York Times reports. The surge follows the overall spike of Covid cases in the U.S.
? Today’s numbers: The U.S. has more than 27.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 487,900 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 109.48 million cases and 2.41 million deaths. More than 71 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S. and about 55 million have been administered, according to the CDC.
? What we’re reading: A next generation coronavirus vaccine is in the works. But initial funding was denied. Read the full story.
Bill would fund hunt for coronavirus mutations
U.S. scientists would gain vastly expanded capabilities to identify potentially deadlier mutations of the coronavirus under proposed legislation. A bill cleared for floor debate last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would provide $1.75 billion for genomic sequencing. It calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to organize a national network to use the technology to track the spread of mutations – such as the recently discovered U.K. and South African variants – and guide public health…
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