To the Editor:
I have not yet met you COVID-19, but I have, like most of humanity, felt your frightening presence. Life as we know it is on hold, people are dying and global commerce has been shuttered. We rarely leave our homes!

I have come to learn that you have always been out there, but we never knew your name. We have been living side by side with your many cousins and some of you have disrupted our lives in challenging but manageable ways. Unlike your brethren, however, you have sadly raised the bar, ruthlessly targeting our most vulnerable population while randomly stealing from every generation to maintain maximum terror.

So here you are, sneaking in surreptitiously, from a part of the world I know little about, hosting in obscure mammals while plotting more sophisticated prey. Your success, I surmise, has far outstripped even your own wildest aspirations while each day you accelerate your deadly advance. Suffering is now worldwide on an unimaginable scale and you apparently are not done yet.

You are, however going to be a “one trick pony” and your time disrupting and killing indiscriminately will soon come to an end. You have grossly miscalculated by invading our lives because, unlike you, we have a loving spirit and collective soul that brings out a ferocity for protecting one another in times of crisis.

COVID-19, you are extremely overmatched, but you don’t know it yet. I am watching an often-polarized world, with competing agendas, sing from rooftops, clap by the millions for those repulsing you, extend the love online to perfect strangers, galvanize competitors within the industrial complex, and mobilize medicine and technology to identify your executioner. Your days are truly numbered!

The silver lining to your horror story, which cannot revive those that you have taken from us, is to remind all of us in countries around the world that we are a part of a global community. My wife just received a caring email from an Italian artist who she met on a recent trip to Italy. In the midst of the worst crisis in over 100 years, he reached out to see if we were well and safe, despite unspeakable carnage in his own country.

Recently we lost my wife’s second cousin, Rosalind Palmer, aka Rosie the Riveter during WWII. With her iconic pose, muscled arm, and fist clinched in defiance, she sent a powerful message to our country and adversaries that we would prevail. We send you, COVID-19, the same message: “We can do it.” We will triumph!

Craig Battle
Chestnut Street