Governor to give OK for houses of worship to re-open, but not at full capacity and with social distancing and facial coverings

Uh...prepackaged host and wine are common outside of catholic services. Maybe you need to get out more?

Is it possible that maybe these churches were too tightly packed anyway then?

My local church tore out half the pews 20 years ago because they had a capacity that was just outrageous but it was not comfortable at all. The new set up had the pews at a slant and left open spaces for folding chairs and handicap access. I imagine this set up would prove to be useful at this time as they may be able to stagger seating in such a way that does not cut out any rows since they are not tightly packed. You create six foot blocks in each row and number them with even and odd numbers. In row one you just seat the evens, in row two you seat the odds.

Lets be honest, outside of Easter this is what these churches look like anyway.

the average church goer is 100 years old

. Again from Kinopio with the absolutism. And not surprisingly completely false.

There's actually a lot of data on the subject. Pew Research for example.

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/age-distribution/

Contrary to most of the misinformation the virus is mostly [excepting essentially kissing distances] spread by people sharing clouds of warm moist virus laden air

As in I breathe out air with virus -- you breathe in air with virus -- fairly simple really

Now the key is what happens to my air after my exhalation -- assuming I'm not moving much -- it forms a small cloud generally in front and somewhat surrounding my head [assuming that I'm not exerting myself heavily].

The rest of what happens depends on the buoyancy or lack there-of -- of the cloud -- think a small hot air balloon

Unless the surrounding air temperature is in the high nineties -- the "virus balloon" will rise while very slowly expanding. Humid air being less dense than dry air -- the virus balloon will lift at a slower rate on a day with warm temperatures and high dew point than on a cold dry day.

All the above is for still air -- add in some relatively aggressive ventilation and the virus balloons will be disrupted and mixed with un-contaminated air

Now the physics stops -- and we need to know something from the biologists relative to the concentration of virus in the air which is likely to be able to infect someone.

Finally, we have the results of the USAMRID lab study of the "half life" of the SARS-COV-2 virus in the air and on surfaces. We now know that for still air with sort of typical winter indoors conditions of dry and typical room temperature -- there will be active virus for many minutes [up to an hour]. Of course that virus infected air will be up near the ceiling.

William N. Bryan, the acting undersecretary for science and technology at the Homeland Security Department. The experiments, conducted at the U.S. Army's biosecurity laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, tested how long the virus would persist on hard, nonporous surfaces and as droplets in the air when exposed to various levels of heat, humidity, and sunlight.

The half-life of the virus in droplets ranged from about 60 minutes to 1.5 minutes. Basically, the hotter, the steamier, and the sunnier, the more quickly the virus was destroyed.

Now the study reported upon by Asst. Sec. Bryan was done in conditions characteristic of indoor winter-type air [70-75 deg F with 20% relative humidity].

The indoor solution is better ventilation and circulation combined with UV irradiation of the airborne virons and micron or less scale droplets

The economy IS the church for much of the nation.
How the rites of worship change to ensure more safe expression of belief needs to be addressed. Churches of other religions also need to adopt new protocols IF they want to protect their members. Maybe God (-s, or the absence thereof) offers protection?