Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct word that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 26 to 30     

  Six thousand couples decided not to let the coronavirus deter them from celebrating their happy day. (26) _______ the health scare from the coronavirus in neighboring China, the multiple brides and grooms attended a mass wedding ceremony in South Korea's Unification Church on Friday. The couples jetted in from sixty countries around the world to attend their wedding. The newlyweds were joined by 24,000 guests; some renewing their marriage vows and (27) _______ watching friends and family tie the knot. The church seemed well prepared for such a large-scale event as staff handed out hand sanitizer and surgical masks to all (28) _______. They also checked the temperature of the couples.       The Unification Church, founded in 1954 by self-declared messiah Sun Myung Moon, is famous for holding mass weddings. The communal weddings started in 1961 and have seen hundreds of thousands of couples walk down the aisle. In (29) _______ cases, the bride and groom had been matched and met for the first time at the ceremony. One newlywed spoke about marrying amid the global spread of the coronavirus. He told the Reuters news agency: “I'm very happy to attend this deeply blessed joint wedding. Since coronavirus is going around these days, I wore a mask to be on the safe side.” By sharp (30) _______, a 23-year-old bride from Benin said: “I didn't put on a mask because I wanted to be beautiful for my husband.” (Adapted from breakingnewsenglish.com)

(26) _______ the health scare from the coronavirus in neighboring China, the multiple brides andgrooms attended a mass wedding ceremony in South Korea's Unification Church on Friday.