Last Updated on December 9, 2020 by YGK News Staff
On Sunday December 6th, Francis Armstrong, pastor at Third Day Worship Centre announced that all in person gatherings would be cancelled and occur online until December 20th. The announcement came as Dr. Moore announced today that there was an outbreak at a place of worship involving at least 9 individuals.
According to a source, the Church quietly prepared to move online as it had learned of the outbreak. However, it has been reluctant to directly mention COVID-19. “[When they first learned of the outbreak], the church had told its membership that it was shutting down as the “christmas season is stressful,” the source told YGK News.
Then, as Armstrong spoke to his membership on Sunday, he stopped short of mentioning that the closure was a result of the virus, instead simply mentioning that they will return when it’s safe to do so. Armstrong remained hopeful that they would see each other again before Christmas.
Third Day Worship Centre has since confirmed publicly that there had been an outbreak connected to their place of worship. “We have learned that there are individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 in our church,” the church said in a statement.
“In the interest of protecting our congregation from further spread, we voluntarily moved to online services until further notice. We also closed our offices immediately, disinfected and sanitized the church and hope members of the church and region at large have a safe recovery,” the church said.
According to a statement, the person affected by the COVID-19 outbreak attended the worship centre on Nov. 29th. On the same day, Evangelist TJ Malcangi attended the church to speak to parishioners.
Malcangi and TDWC had faced scrutiny over the November 29th gathering after community members noticed that the church had encouraged Torontonians to attend the church. “This Sunday Only!! If you’re in Toronto & your church shut down, this one is less than 3 hours away!!” TJ Malcagni said in an Instagram post.
There are currently 56 active cases of COVID-19 as of December 7th, 24 of which are related to the outbreak at the place of worship. There is also an outbreak at a Health care centre, though Dr. Moore has not disclosed which health care centre is dealing with the outbreak. Queen’s University has 6 active cases of COVID-19 in its community.
