Differences between religious communities during the pandemic

With the outbreak of COVID 19, obviously everyone’s lives have been altered in some fashion, and many places have had to close down, whether that be businesses, schools, or places of worship. However, I think that it’s been very interesting to watch how different religions and different places of worship handle this outbreak in a comparative sense. After volunteering at the Al-Fajr Islamic center for my ICR and attending a catholic church while I’m home, I’ve been able to experience two very different cultures over this time period and how they handle the situation differently. Although I obviously haven’t been able to be on site to volunteer at the mosque recently, I’ve been in contact with them and have gotten information on what they’re doing to handle the situation. The Al-Fajr center has completely canceled all prayer services for the next several weeks in order to prevent the spread of COVID 19. This seems like the best course of action at this time, and I would definitely like to know how exactly the community is reacting to it. However, just last weekend the catholic church I normally attend was still open for mass all weekend. They assumed that any young healthy people that still wanted to attend mass should be free to do so. However, the small amount of people that showed up were at risk old people. With this they have been forced to rethink their choice to keep the church open. This made me really think about the differences in our communities. If Al-Fajr remained opened who would have still showed up? Is the fact that the mosque closed immediately and the catholic church didn’t a blatant difference in how these separate communities think? I think that outbreak has posed a lot of these hypothetical questions, and although there are no clear answers, it certainly is interesting to think about.