Btw, I think it's time for the Sacramento County health official to name his sources but I won't hold my breath waiting.
Beilenson said 71 of the church’s members who live in Sacramento County have tested positive, and more members who live in surrounding counties also have confirmed cases, though he could not immediately say how many.
Information and sermons on the church’s website indicate it stopped holding large gatherings March 18. The church is the largest Russian-language Pentecostal church in the area and has a congregation of more than 3,000 people, according to published reports. Its two-story building is normally packed with congregants, many of them older immigrants, during multiple services each week.
According to a sermon from Sunday posted online, the church’s senior pastor, Adam Bondaruk, is hospitalized with the virus, as are two other pastors, who were described as “critically ill” by an unidentified pastor in the video.
“We have many different people in our church, they are ill, so we need to pray. We need to intervene,” the pastor continued in the video. “God will hear us, and he will heal us.”
The church has met with controversy in the past, including for anti-gay rhetoric. This year, a well on the church’s property that was used by congregants was found to be contaminated with chemicals from a nearby military base. One of the church’s officials was convicted of pedophilia in 2018.
Beilenson confirmed that church greeters shaking hands with congregants as they entered may have helped spread the coronavirus. In the online sermon, the unidentified pastor said that shortly after New Year’s Day, the church had a problem with the “greeting team.”
“I know we are entering this valley right now,” the pastor said during the taped sermon. “When this thing will be over, and when we [are] going to come here and when we are going to shake hands, I think it’s going to be a totally different meaning.”
As the coronavirus has spread across Sacramento County, infecting more than 340 people and killing nine, health officials said 1 in 3 confirmed cases in the county are linked to church gatherings.
Coronavirus outbreak in Sacramento is linked to events by churches, officials say - Los Angeles Times