Taking lesson from Greatest Generation

We now are standing behind Plexiglas at the supermarket. After waiting in lines where tape reminds us to keep 6 feet of space between us and the next shopper. Of course, we likely trudge back to our cars without several essentials that sent us there in the first place, including toilet paper.

We will not be voting on April 28. The primary election, where we will nominate candidates for president, the state House of Representatives and Senate, will take place the first Tuesday in June.

We remain hunkered down at home, under orders from the governor that shuttered any business not considered “life-sustaining.” Schools remain closed, and the doors will remain locked now for an additional two weeks.

We’ve even lost – at least temporarily – our houses of worship. First the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced it would suspend all public Mass services. Many other denominations did likewise. On Wednesday archdiocese officials said they would not hold Holy Week services – including Easter Sunday Mass.

And yet all of that, all of the ways that the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 illness it inflicts upon its victims has disrupted our lives over the past two weeks, pales behind the news of deaths.

Delaware County suffered its first two deaths connected to coronavirus; Montgomery County has had three deaths. The total in Pennsylvania as of Friday was 22.

We all knew it was coming. It does not make it any easier to hear.

The first case of presumptive coronavirus infection was detected in the region March 6 in Delaware County, followed by two cases in Montgomery County March 7.

That’s just three weeks ago. 21 days.

Since then, the numbers here have done what they have done elsewhere – exploded.

As of Friday the number of cases of coronavirus in the state soared over 2,000.

The biggest fear nationally remains a collapse of the health care system, particularly in places like New York City. Officials there and in New Jersey have put out a plea for supplies, and warned they are fast running out of hospital beds.

Such is the state we find ourselves in.

It’s a state of constant anxiety, in many cases aggravated by a loss of a job or business. Federal officials Thursday noted more than 3 million people have filed new unemployment claims, an all-time high.

There is a sliver of good news. The Senate unanimously passed a massive $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package followed by House passage on Friday. It will put money in the pockets of citizens - $1,200 for many single filers, $2,400 for married couples, so long as you don’t make too much already – and it will help business.

But it won’t ease the pain of the lives lost.

Or the anxiety of those who see their worlds falling apart a day at a time.

It’s hard to rally, to unite as a community, when we are asked to remain at home, isolated – sometimes even from our own family members.

Maybe most daunting is the one seeming certainty in all of this. The warning from health officials that it likely will get worse before it gets better.

That is part of the insidious nature of this virus. It’s not where we are now, it’s where we will be two weeks from now.

The health care system is under strain never seen before. They are some of the heroes in this fight, on the front lines in the battle to contain this disease.

That is why we are being urged to stay at home, to practice “social distancing,” keeping 6 feet between us.

It might seem to be the antithesis of uniting, but it is the key to “flattening the curve” and assuring that a massive influx of victims does not take down the whole system.

For now we mourn those lost, wonder about what is to come, and salute those serving in the fight of our lives.

This is not the first time American society has been so tested. The surviving members of the Greatest Generation, those who lived through the Great Depression and defeated the Axis powers in World War II, can attest to the nation’s backbone.

All they did was save the world.

It’s time for all of us to do the same.