This is the clear and present danger ... people continuing to congregate -- squeezing into close quarters like sardines -- and that's exactly what happened Sunday at a Florida Church.

The River Church in Tampa was packed to the gills with worshipers who clearly were looking for hope. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who presides over the megachurch and has been reportedly defiant over social distancing, has claimed he'll cure coronavirus just the way he did with Zika.

He has vowed he will never close his church ... despite every doctor and scientist saying social distancing is the only thing that will prevent the disease from spreading even more.

The Pastor boasted his place was white-glove clean, saying, “We brought in 13 machines that basically kill every virus in the place, and uh, if somebody walks through the door it’s like, it kills everything on them. If they sneeze, it shoots it down at like 100 mph. It'll neutralize it in split seconds. We have the most sterile building in, I don’t know, all of America.”

Howard-Browne said on March 17, "We are not stopping anything. I've got news for you, this church will never close. The only time the church will close is when the Rapture is taking place.”

The Pastor has peddled ridiculous theories in the past, but this takes the cake.

The scariest part ... all these people showed up elbow-to-elbow. If they contract the disease, they are the ones most likely to spread it, because they are clearly not practicing or understanding social distancing.

BTW ... Pastor Joel Osteen, who presides over the Lakewood Church in Houston, is doing virtual services to protect his congregation.