Media headlines regarding infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, plague, HIV/AIDS, polio, viral hepatitis, measles, meningitis, cholera, chikungunya and Ebola have increased. The threat of disease is presented as real and poised to become a global killer if God allows mankind to do his worst. Health authorities admit that vaccines, antibiotics and pharmaceutical drugs are worthless against new pandemics. Governments issue alerts to doctors and prepare detection kits for outbreaks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintain procedures backed by law to handle outbreaks. Under Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services may prevent entry and spread of communicable diseases. The CDC employs isolation to separate ill persons and quarantine to restrict well persons who may have been exposed. Such measures include creation of detainment facilities. Legislation allows public health authorities to force medical examinations, vaccinations, treatments and quarantines, to track health information, to mandate reporting of cases, to control property and to mobilize militia. An executive order permits detection of respiratory illnesses. The Old Testament writers present a pre-scientific view of illness and see external forces as playing a significant part in the cause of disease. Sometimes the agent of disease is explicitly said to be evil in origin though permitted by God. The sufferings of Job are explained in this way. Paul describes his thorn in the flesh as a messenger of Satan. Members of God's church hold the hope and assurance that God's powerful Holy Spirit of love of truth and of strength remains unshakable. From this they receive confidence that God has control over what happens to each person so that no reason exists to worry. Nothing can happen unless God allows it.

Infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome have been presented in media reports yet statistics indicate that this condition represents a reclassification of influenza or pneumonia. Symptoms of serious influenza or pneumonia include high fever, coughing, runny nose, headache, muscle ache or diarrhea, shortness of breath, and lung inflammation. These symptoms do not differ significantly from those associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome. Annual hospitalized cases of pneumonia range between fifteen thousand and twenty five thousand in certain regions with more than three thousand deaths each year from serious pneumonia. The total number of deaths from atypical pneumonias of all causes during a four month period was less than five percent higher than during the corresponding period one year earlier. This comparison demonstrates the absence of an epidemic. Worldwide deaths from influenza number three hundred thousand in a given year. Over sixty three thousand influenza and pneumonia deaths occur in the united states. In one month more than four hundred people died of influenza in one major city. The published average mortality rate for influenza or pneumonia stands at seven point six percent in the united states. The international mortality rate of severe acute respiratory syndrome is reported at four percent and six percent in one specific location.

God promises to send pestilence among rebellious people who are gathered into cities. A pestilence is a contagious disease that is virulent and devastating. God appoints wasting disease and fever. Fever is the foremost symptom of a viral infection. COVID-19 joins other recent manifestations of pestilence and fever such as swine flu, bird flu, West Nile virus, SARS, and MERS. Each year the flu is another pestilence that varies in its severity. The flu killed between 46,000 and 95,000 people in the nation during the 2017-2018 season. Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic started back in the 80s, three quarters of a million people have died of it in the nation alone. God sends pestilences and fevers because of rebellion. God claims responsibility for the severity of COVID-19 or for faintness into hearts that produces irrational fear over a disease akin to the seasonal flu.