TY - JOUR AU - Erickson-Mamane, Lauren AU - Kryshchuk, Alina AU - Gvozdetska, Olga AU - Rossovskyi, Dmytro AU - Glatt, Aaron AU - Katz, David AU - Gluck, Zvi AU - Butryn, Deena AU - Gebru, Yonathan AU - Guerra, Laura AU - Masor, Alyssa AU - Blaney, Kathleen AU - Papaharalambus, Christopher AU - Barzilay, Ezra AU - Hakim, Avi T1 - Faith Community Engagement to Mitigate COVID-19 Transmission Associated with Mass Gathering, Uman, Ukraine, September 2021 T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2022 VL - 28 IS - 13 SP - 197 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Annually, ≈30,000 Hasidic and Orthodox Jews travel to Uman, Ukraine, during the Jewish New Year to pray at the burial place of the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. Many pilgrims come from the northeastern United States. The global health implications of this event were seen in 2019 when measles outbreaks in the United States and Israel were linked to the pilgrimage. The 2020 pilgrimage was cancelled as part of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by the government of Ukraine. To prepare for the 2021 event, the National Public Health Institute, the Public Health Center of Ukraine, organized mitigation measures for pilgrims arriving in Uman, and the CDC COVID-19 International Task Force assisted with mitigation measures for pilgrims coming from the United States. We describe efforts to support COVID-19 mitigation measures before, during, and after this mass gathering and lessons learned for future mass gatherings during pandemics. KW - COVID-19 KW - coronavirus disease KW - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - coronavirus KW - viruses KW - respiratory infections KW - transmission KW - faith community engagement KW - contact tracing KW - physical distancing KW - mass gathering KW - mitigation KW - pilgrimage KW - pilgrim KW - vaccination KW - zoonoses KW - Uman KW - Ukraine DO - 10.3201/eid2813.220183 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/13/22-0183_article ER - End of Reference