Fort Worth church cancels service as priest tests presumptive positive for coronavirus
Trinity Episcopal Church has canceled its Sunday service and closed its building after a priest tested presumptive positive for a case of COVID-19, or coronavirus.
Father Robert Pace is the first known case of coronavirus in Tarrant County. Pace attended the The Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes annual conference from Feb. 19 to Feb. 22 in Louisville, Kentucky.
His wife, who is the early childhood and lower school chaplain for All Saints’ Episcopal School of Fort Worth, has tested negative but will remain in self-quarantine at home for 14 days. Pace is hospitalized in isolation.
The CDC has not recommended the school close. The school will extensively clean this week, according to Meg Hasten, a spokesperson for the school.
Anyone who attended the Lenten program on March 4 (about 45 people) will receive a call from the Tarrant County Public Health Department to “check on your health and to discuss what you should be monitoring yourselves for,” according to Senior Warden Scott Millican.
The calls will probably begin Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the congregation is not at risk, Millican said.
Trinity has closed the church building, at 3401 Bellair Drive South, and offices to the public for the time being. Students who attend the preschool are on spring break this week and had no exposure to Pace, according to church spokeswoman Katie Sherrod.
The Lenten program scheduled March 11 has also been canceled.
The wardens, diocesan office, and church staff “are working closely with Tarrant County Public Health to ensure everyone’s health and safety.”
“Be assured that Father Robert has been appropriately careful,” Millican wrote in a letter to parishioners. “He went to his physician when he began feeling ill on 2/27. He tested negative to the flu twice.”
The church was also a voting site during the March 2 primaries, however, Millican said Pace had not been at the church from Feb. 27 to late March 4.
“The elections people brought in their own tables, chairs, and election equipment into the Parish Hall for use on Election Day,” he wrote.
On Pace’s return to the building, he and several others wiped down all hard surfaces in his offices and commonly touched surfaces in his office with Clorox wipes. After Pace led the Wednesday night class, the associate rector wiped the lectern, microphone, chair, and piano bench with Clorox wipes to be extra cautious, Millican wrote.
“His exposure to anyone being within 3 feet of him was very limited — mainly to the associate rector and the deacon,” Millican wrote. “He was appropriately cautious also and had been fever-free for 24 hours.”
He has not been in the building again since 7:45 p.m. at March 4, at Sherrod said.
Tarrant County’s testing lab serves Tarrant and 33 other counties in the region. It has about 1,800 testing kits.
COVID-19 causes respiratory illness with fever and cough and may lead to bronchitis and severe pneumonia.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 10:04 AM with the headline "Fort Worth church cancels service as priest tests presumptive positive for coronavirus."
