GOSHEN, Indiana — On Thursday, April 2, a local prayer group hosted a “Pack the Lot” event where they planned to pack the Goshen Hospital Parking lot with cars to pray for the staff and patients. Packing the parking lot that patients have to use to access hospital services sounds like a bad idea to a reasonable person. They said they would practice safe social distancing and stay in their cars before the event, and after the event they were proud of themselves for doing just that. What they didn’t count on was Goshen Hospital staff reporting to us that they were out of their cars, and the pictures we have were supplied by local photographers.

When we heard the prayer group planned to congregate at Goshen Health, we reached out to administration to let them know what was planned and the potential dangers of such an event. We also posted our official statement on their Facebook page.

The event took place, and it was everything we had warned the hospital about. People out of their cars, congregating, not wearing masks, taking up spaces, creating a gauntlet of potential virus-laden air that patients had to navigate through to access hospital services. The opposite of what we should be striving for.