I’m working from home. Cleaning the closets. Playing with the dog. Calling my friends. Promising my children that I’ll stay home – or close to it. And learning how to balance the dread of what we don’t know and can’t see with the beauty of just being here.

“One of our biggest challenges is that many people don’t believe in the seriousness of this pandemic,” Catholic Bishop David Talley told colleagues in a webinar. “Please believe in what science is saying. This is not the devil. This is what science is telling us.”

'One piece of good news is that the other coronaviruses that continue to circulate among humans typically cause very mild illness like a common cold.'

A Facebook page will be the home base for this unified faith effort. You can find the page by searching for Memphis Clergy COVID-19 Response. Anyone can access the page and offer to work on a project.

In the final tally, 3,097 Memphians suffered from the flu and 75 died. However, it is certain that quick action to curtail public gatherings, along with the enthusiastic consent of the citizenry, halted the spread of flu and saved many lives. 

Do we just pray for our environment? Or pray for children being separated from their parents? Or might the faith communities be called to engage in … dare I suggest it … politics?

The most common question I’m asked remains, “When can I get back to work?” Without work, no one gets paid, and without paychecks, kids don’t eat.

The virus is already widespread in the United States, so travel bans and school closures will not stop the virus or prevent individuals from eventually being infected. The most reasonable argument for doing so is to prevent a surge in severe cases that might overwhelm area health systems.

Most recent studies are showing that aggressive intervention earlier in the epidemic can lead to control of the epidemic. This is encouraging news.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare is focused on access, racial disparities in health care, gerontology, technology, quality improvement and cost management. Its purchase of Saint Francis Hospitals is an opportunity to leverage these priorities for even more of Memphis and Shelby County.

Rev. Sonia Louden Walker is the speaker Tuesday, March 10, for the Calvary Lenten Preaching Series, which continues Tuesdays to Fridays through April 3 at Calvary Episcopal Church, 102 N. Second St.

Dr. Jon McCullers of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine answers key questions about the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Faculty and staff from UTHSC will play a large role in the clinical care of patients with the disease COVID-19 when it reaches Memphis.

I believe the solution to most matters of fear is to embrace the opposite of fear: love. This is rarely what people want to hear from the doctor. They are looking for the right medicine or course of treatment.

More than 40 states – though currently not Tennessee – have passed legislation that ensures that all cancer treatments are covered in the same way, and with the same cost-sharing requirements.

The Blight Authority hears reports that range from structurally unsafe homes with gaping holes that serve as playgrounds for neighborhood children to accounts of bulk pesticides to ward off the rodents and pests that inhabit abandoned properties. 

Then-Mayor Willie Herenton was such a supporter of I-69, he hosted the Mid-Continent Highway Coalition’s first meeting in November 1992 at The Peabody. Around 50 business and community leaders from all eight of the states that would benefit from I-69 attended that day.

While for many, COVID-19 infection would be mild or moderate, no different than the common cold, the greatest impact will be felt by the elderly.

The impatience to build a new facility from scratch caught the attention of the company holding title to an existing, unoccupied facility. Now instead of an $11 million annual lease agreement, the county could acquire the building and property for just a fraction of the original expense – $3.4 million.

There’s a small case about a Valvoline station before the city’s Board of Adjustment that represents a very big decision about how Midtown’s landscape will evolve.

Listen to the prophets Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and today’s prophets, like William Barber II and Bryan Stevenson. Don’t simply say “I am not a racist,” but “I know I’ve got to do more.”

It was a cosmic certainty that the one for me would be a music lover, too, but you already know the argument I’m here to make: Memphis music is the perfect soundtrack for falling in love, no matter who you are.

A survey by Tennesseans for Quality Early Education shows Tennessee voters are unified in their dissatisfaction with the state’s public education system and united in their support for expanding early education. 

Research has repeatedly determined that when we treat kids like kids, public safety outcomes improve. If the Shelby County Sheriff, DA and judges want to combat serious crimes, they need to stop investing in failed “get tough” strategies for youthful offenders.

Ginger Spickler saw a billboard for a foundation that was giving away $10 million to five teams who could prove they were ready to “reinvent high school.” She thought: “Memphis could really use this.”

When laws unfairly give companies the upper hand in negotiations with labor unions, all workers suffer the consequences.