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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged

OKLAHOMA CITY — To quote Will Ferrell’s character in the original “Anchorman” movie, “Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.”

The fictional news anchor Ron Burgundy’s words seem fitting when reflecting back on the COVID-19 pandemic, which became real to most Americans five years ago this week.

By the time March got rolling in 2020, the phrase “coronavirus outbreak” already had entered the nation’s lexicon.

In a March 5 story that year, The Associated Press’ David Crary wrote:

NEW YORK — A rising number of churches across the United States are making changes in response to the coronavirus outbreak, including a decision by numerous Catholic dioceses to suspend the serving of wine during Communion.

Thus far, there have been relatively few cancellations of worship services. However, Jamie Aten, a psychologist who is executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College, said it would be wise for faith leaders to start preparing for that eventuality.

Interestingly, the term “COVID-19” does not appear in that report, nor in a New York Times piece a few days earlier that delved into “Worship in the Age of the Coronavirus.” 

Although the World Health Organization had designated that official name in February 2020 for the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the news media and ordinary people hadn’t adopted the official shorthand yet.

Here at Weekend Plug-in on March 6, 2020, I quipped, “Wash your hands before reading the rest of this.” Then I linked to a variety of faith-related stories about what I, too, labeled the “coronavirus outbreak.”

That same weekend, I got on an airplane — with no mask required — and flew to Nashville to cover the aftermath of deadly tornadoes that ravaged Middle Tennessee.

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In hard-hit Cookeville, about 80 miles east of Nashville, I ate dinner upon arrival at a crowded Golden Corral buffet. Again, no mask required. 

Certainly, all of us were talking by that time about what became known as COVID-19. However, I don’t know that many of us were overly concerned about it.

Read the full column.

This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.

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