Ohio’s Amish taking outbreak seriously
‘This community is very keen on taking care of each other. Sometimes it takes an outbreak of something to get people’s attention.’
In the heart of Ohio’s Amish Country, the Plain community has traditionally held itself a step or two away from the frenzy of the modern world. But after a 2014 measles epidemic rampaged through Holmes and Knox counties, many more Amish started getting vaccines and forged tighter bonds with public health officials.
Those bonds appear to be paying dividends in the current coronavirus epidemic.
“They’re informed, they’re aware,” said Taylor Krebs, public information officer for the Holmes County General Health District.
With nearly 36,000 Amish in 2018, the Holmes County area settlement is second in size only to the one in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Their faith is an outgrowth of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. As part of it, they seek to be “Plain people”: modest in dress so as not to call too much attention to themselves. They also seek to distance themselves from the latest technology in an effort not to be too much in this world.
But there is great diversity in the rules Amish settlements adopt to protect those principles. Michael Derr, Holmes County health commissioner, said most of the Plain people of Holmes County aren’t as conservative as those in other groups, and that’s helped in getting the word out about the COVID-19 threat.
“They have relatives who are ‘English,’” Derr said, employing the term plain people use to describe people who are not members of their faith. In some conservative groups, Amish have little to do with relatives who have left the faith.
But in Holmes County, many in the Plain community communicate frequently with English relatives and have learned about the coronavirus that way. Others have cellphones and receive voice and email messages on them, Derr said.
Through those channels — and through the Amish nurse navigator at Millersburg’s Pomerene Hospital — health officials communicated with bishops, who sent word to parochial schools saying that as “God fearing, law-abiding” citizens, the schools must be closed.
Holmes County health commissioner
“It was really great to see,” Krebs said.
In Knox County, Holmes County’s neighbor to the southwest, Amish residents also have gotten the word about COVID-19, said Mike Shaheen, a pharmacist at Conway’s Danville Pharmacy. The pharmacy opened last year as part of a full-service clinic that is a partnership with the Knox County Health Department.
“They’re very aware of it,” Shaheen said. “They know exactly what’s going on.”
In fact, he said, the pharmacy’s Amish customers are little different from their English neighbors: They’re asking the same questions. They’re stocking up on prescriptions. And they want to know why they can’t get hand sanitizer or thermometers.
“We can’t get those things from our wholesalers, but I’m not seeing a panic,” Shaheen said.
Derr, the Holmes County health commissioner, said Amish residents also have the same economic concerns as everybody else: Their buffets are shut down, tourism has dried up, the auction barns are closed and employers want to know how they can operate in compliance with state health orders and, if not, how to provide paid leave.
“This community is very keen on taking care of each other,” Derr said. He added that in the wake of the 2014 measles outbreak, vaccination rates in his county have risen from 26% to 36%. “Sometimes it takes an outbreak of something to get people’s attention.”
Derr said many Amish want to practice social distancing, but it’s an open question whether some will suspend large Sunday worship services in members’ homes.
“We’ve been giving guidance, but I’m not going to impose on anyone’s religious freedom,” Derr said.
Michael Derr