These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.   –Thomas Paine, American Crisis.

There is both wisdom and prophesy in Thomas Paine’s words. Only this time we cannot see the enemy. Nor do we know much about its behavior. And our defenses against it are an intrusion into our way of life that we now need to call upon our basic grit and determination to help us overcome it. 

We will conquer the Covid-19 virus. It has already cost us too many lives, a huge stock of our fortunes, and our sacred honor, once held in abundance, is now tattered by it. But tattered is not lost. And while there are many more wounds to be opened, scars do mend, even though there are more battles to be fought, and more hand-to-hand combat to come. 

We were not prepared to fight an invisible foe. We needed tens millions of face masks, and latex gloves, and test kits that we did not have. We needed tens of thousands of ventilators that were not part of our inventory. So we had to pull together what we did have, learn “on-the-fly” about how, when, where, and why to allocate them. And then we began charting our progress that consisted of unwanted steep curves of casualties and deaths that overwhelmed our capacity to treat and heal them. The steep curves were overpowering the desired flattened curves. It became obvious that we needed new defensive measures and a new kind of leadership. We needed bright intellectuals—learned men and women in the medical profession to measure, analyze, and conclude with little room for errors.

Our new leaders had to teach us new defensive measures: How to hunker down. How to disinfect ourselves and our environment. When and where to don masks and gloves. We learned to moved away from each other into “social” distances that protected us from each other, so insidious was the enemy’s infiltration. Shortages in food and supplies were over-run by a huge new demand for them—driven more by fear than need. Still, the tally of casualties mounted, and the projections bent skyward.    

The timing could not have been worse. An already overheated election year was in full swing. Policy decisions from a few political leaders had taken on a highly partisan and often nonsensical appearance. So thick was the chaos, it appeared that many political leaders were using ineptitude as weapons against science and the scientific method.  Are they the new sunshine patriots, with no sense of duty, while spouting gibberish in collusion with the new enemy within?  

Common sense will win out. Along with many distinguished medical professionals, governors of a few states are now emerging as new leaders in this fight.  From New England, to the West Coast, and in a few Mid-Western states a small cadre of governors has emerged to answer the call to service.  These are the men and women whose souls are being tried, and whose resolve to serve their country has propelled them to the top. They are our new patriots. And they deserve the love and thanks of us all.