For a generation that hasn’t had to confront much communal suffering, the image of “our Pearl Harbor moment” may be what is needed to get people’s attention.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams used that comparison on “Meet the Press” Sunday to describe what Americans face this week. He also used, “our 9/11 moment,” something more hauntingly familiar to millions of people who remember that day.
The comparison was likely not meant to be literal, but to describe moments of community-wide grief, pain, shock and helplessness.
The expected surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths this week will provide plenty of this. No doubt many already are bracing.
The fight against COVID-19 may often be compared to war, but it is different. The “army” defending the homeland involves everyone, large or small, old or young, obeying common-sense instructions. It is a time for vigilance, careful distancing and hygienic practices.
It also is a time for compassion, personal ministering and humble petitions to God. Faith traditions have played a vital role in American history, spurring people to action and inspiring victory against long odds.
President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which owns this paper) has called for a worldwide fast of people of all faiths this Friday. Fasting is a principle as old as religion, itself. In the fourth century, St. Basil The Great described it as “the strength and power to pull down strongholds. It is a weapon we as humans have that must be used accompanied by repentance and prayer.”
It was a principle taught and practiced by Jesus, whose 40-day fast in the wilderness gave him the spiritual strength and power to begin his ministry.
The people of the world today need spiritual strength and power. Medical workers need stamina and inspiration to continue their vital work. Researchers and medical scientists need inspiration to find cures, and average people need to reconnect to the spiritual roots that are the foundation of civil society and personal conviction.
This week’s pain will be felt unevenly. New York City’s desperate plight cannot be compared to Utah’s current situation, for example. However, it can provide warnings and lessons for the Beehive State, where cases continue to rise and may not peak until the end of April.
Some have been critical of Gov. Gary Herbert for not issuing a blanket stay-at-home order for the entire state. But the pain is being felt unevenly throughout the state, as well, and the governor has left it up to individual counties to regulate the severity of restrictions.
Health departments in five counties, including populous Salt Lake and Utah counties, have stricter orders in place, prohibiting nonessential travel and closing nonessential businesses.
Compliance is the key, and some people in the independent-minded West may react defiantly to too heavy of a government hand. However, Herbert needs to monitor the disease’s progress in Utah closely and be unafraid to issue a stricter statewide order if cases continue to rise.
The pain of this historic moment is not all about sickness and death, of course. The world’s greatest economy has come to a screeching halt, taking with it jobs and incomes. The sacrifice people are asked to make in the name of curbing sickness is real.
No, bombs aren’t raining down on Pacific naval installations. Terrorists aren’t attacking our largest cities. But the response Americans provide this week — pulling together figuratively in isolation, doing all they can to keep sickness and death from spreading — is every bit as important as what Americans of the past did to turn great defeats into eventual victories.