As I drove up Route 1, a sign flashed, “We got this, Scarborough.” We do. While the fight is not over, victory is around the corner. Thanks to competent and caring Center for Disease Control and Prevention officials, heroic health care workers, governors and good people everywhere, we are winning this fight.
Social distancing is working. People are listening to science, caring for one another and working together on a global level. The cooperation, willingness to reach across state and national boundaries to help one another and to make the personal and financial sacrifices needed to make it all work are inspirational. We have got this. COVID-19 has shown the power of humanity to meet any challenge that comes our way.
We will win the war against COVID-19. Imagine what would happen if we put the same effort into winning the war against climate change. Imagine incentives to keep people working at home, war power acts that directed Bath Iron Works to make windmills and General Motors to make electric cars, stimulus packages that built public transportation, wireless infrastructure and daily CDC reports that told us what was really going on. Imagine what would happen if these same efforts were put into the wars against poverty, or gun violence, or drugs – each of which has taken far more lives than the virus itself.
Pandemic showed that where there is a will, there is a way. We will win the fight against the virus. Will we win these other fights? The answer is up to us.
Benjamin Shambaugh
Portland
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