tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Emerg Infect Dis
. 2022 Oct;28(13):197-202.
doi: 10.3201/eid2813.220183.
Faith Community Engagement to Mitigate COVID-19 Transmission Associated with Mass Gathering, Uman, Ukraine, September 2021
Lauren Erickson-Mamane, Alina Kryshchuk, Olga Gvozdetska, Dmytro Rossovskyi, Aaron Glatt, David Katz, Zvi Gluck, Deena Butryn, Yonathan Gebru, Laura Guerra, Alyssa Masor, Kathleen Blaney, Christopher A Papaharalambus, Ezra J Barzilay, Avi J Hakim
Abstract
Annually, ≈30,000 Hasidic and Orthodox Jews travel to Uman, Ukraine, during the Jewish New Year to pray at the burial place of the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. Many pilgrims come from the northeastern United States. The global health implications of this event were seen in 2019 when measles outbreaks in the United States and Israel were linked to the pilgrimage. The 2020 pilgrimage was cancelled as part of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by the government of Ukraine. To prepare for the 2021 event, the National Public Health Institute, the Public Health Center of Ukraine, organized mitigation measures for pilgrims arriving in Uman, and the CDC COVID-19 International Task Force assisted with mitigation measures for pilgrims coming from the United States. We describe efforts to support COVID-19 mitigation measures before, during, and after this mass gathering and lessons learned for future mass gatherings during pandemics.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Ukraine; Uman; contact tracing; coronavirus; coronavirus disease; faith community engagement; mass gathering; mitigation; physical distancing; pilgrim; pilgrimage; respiratory infections; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; transmission; vaccination; viruses; zoonoses.
. 2022 Oct;28(13):197-202.
doi: 10.3201/eid2813.220183.
Faith Community Engagement to Mitigate COVID-19 Transmission Associated with Mass Gathering, Uman, Ukraine, September 2021
Lauren Erickson-Mamane, Alina Kryshchuk, Olga Gvozdetska, Dmytro Rossovskyi, Aaron Glatt, David Katz, Zvi Gluck, Deena Butryn, Yonathan Gebru, Laura Guerra, Alyssa Masor, Kathleen Blaney, Christopher A Papaharalambus, Ezra J Barzilay, Avi J Hakim
- PMID: 36502392
- DOI: 10.3201/eid2813.220183
Abstract
Annually, ≈30,000 Hasidic and Orthodox Jews travel to Uman, Ukraine, during the Jewish New Year to pray at the burial place of the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. Many pilgrims come from the northeastern United States. The global health implications of this event were seen in 2019 when measles outbreaks in the United States and Israel were linked to the pilgrimage. The 2020 pilgrimage was cancelled as part of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by the government of Ukraine. To prepare for the 2021 event, the National Public Health Institute, the Public Health Center of Ukraine, organized mitigation measures for pilgrims arriving in Uman, and the CDC COVID-19 International Task Force assisted with mitigation measures for pilgrims coming from the United States. We describe efforts to support COVID-19 mitigation measures before, during, and after this mass gathering and lessons learned for future mass gatherings during pandemics.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Ukraine; Uman; contact tracing; coronavirus; coronavirus disease; faith community engagement; mass gathering; mitigation; physical distancing; pilgrim; pilgrimage; respiratory infections; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; transmission; vaccination; viruses; zoonoses.