COVID-19 tested us, and America rose to challenge

It’s been a year that tested our nation’s soul.

On March 10, 2020, Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency over the growing coronavirus outbreak. A day later, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.

The virus was here, and we saw maps of the country fill with dots tracking the spread. The initial sparse showing belied COVID’s strength. We watched news from Italy, of locked-down residents singing from balconies and terrified to shop for food.

In the early days here, COVID19 was still an abstract, we had no reference point.

There was the sense that the state’s lockdown would last a few weeks, surely we wouldn’t be like Italy or the other countries around the world with empty streets. Until our own streets were all but empty, stores and businesses shut, restaurants closed, and we were the ones afraid.

Hand sanitizer and masks were almost impossible to find — a grim new reality for a country used to well-stocked store shelves and ready availability. When toilet paper and bread joined the list of scarcities, American society got a new taste of want.

We weren’t used to this, it wasn’t us. As jobless numbers soared, families who had never known food insecurity were lining up outside food banks. The Boston Marathon was postponed, then canceled. Festivals, carnivals and celebrations to mark milestones fell by the wayside.

And the maps were now tracking deaths as well as COVID-19 cases. For every statistic, a family said goodbye to a grandmother or grandfather, or buried loved ones who struggled with diabetes and other health issues that made them vulnerable. Hospital beds filled and medical personnel worked grueling shifts, only to watch helplessly as their patients lost the fight.

But crisis reveals character, and for Massachusetts and the rest of the country, the revelations were often astounding.

There were, of course, life’s low-rollers who took advantage of short supplies in masks and sanitizers to hoard or gouge prices, and shoppers brawling in the aisles over packages of Charmin.

Yet, as our elected leaders jockeyed to cast blame on how the crisis was being handled, we saw who was really keeping the country running — and stepped up to offer well-deserved thanks.

Nurses, delivery drivers, doctors, grocery store workers — all those doing jobs we long took for granted were on the receiving end as neighborhoods cheered, honked their horns and held signs saying “thank you.” People who were used to food and groceries being at the store when they wanted it learned how many it took to keep the machine going — from plant workers to drivers and store staff.

Our first responders did yeoman’s work, and we let them know it.

Perhaps that’s part of America’s spirit — we so often rise when tested, and reach out to help when it’s needed.

Now, a year later, there is real hope for the things we miss so much to return in full — eating in restaurants, watching movies in a theater, taking in a game at Fenway, walking around Boston and shopping up a storm.

But the pandemic has also taught us that there’s still much work to do — as the wide gaps in opportunity and access for communities of color and the poor were laid bare through these months of adversity.

We can run these last few miles. And when we get to Destination Normal, we know we have it in us to ensure that everyone can enjoy America at its best.