Active news cycles and fluctuating pandemic trends translate into limited “news” on the religion/COVID-19 front. Each week sees, mostly from the United States but also elsewhere, reports of tensions around vaccine and mask mandates, including U.S. Supreme Court action. The impact of social media and particularly misinformation, is another continuing focus, with religious dimensions often a focus; an example is a new report on Facebook’s “failure to counter disinformation”. A somewhat worrying report from Uganda cites President Museveni’s assertion that COVID-19 has been “defeated”, citing God’s intervention.

The lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious practice and institutions draw some commentary, and it varies in tone. On finance, an example of a positive account of continuing donations contrasts with stories about the broad impact of budget cuts (especially the UK slashing of aid funds), including specifically COVID-19 related funding.

A research article explores how far religious fundamentalism (RF) is positively related to COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, concluding that “centrality of religiosity is either unrelated or negatively related to COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs.” However, “COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs mediate the link between RF and maladaptive behavior.”

A report on Malaysia explores the role of religion in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic, centered on multi-faith perspectives. “While religious leaders have advised social distancing among their congregants, the belief that ‘God is our shield’ is often cited for gathering. There is a need to promote sound decision-making among religious adherents so that they will not prioritize their loyalty to the subjective interpretation of religion over evidence-based medicine. Malaysia, a multi-cultural and multi-faith country, is an example of how religious beliefs could strongly influence health behaviours at individual and community levels.”

Various reports offer glimpses of the impact of the pandemic at a human level. An example from Turkey highlights how ritual corpse washers say that their faith overcame their COVID-19 fears.

We were intrigued to find a lengthy Wikipedia entry on COVID-19’s impact on religion.