There is a kindergarten class of 20 bright-eyed four and five year olds.

A gas leak occurs in their school building.

You live next door.

You are incredibly comfortable, watching a movie, eating takeout from your favorite restaurant. Several friends are lounging with you.

You hear children screaming for help.

What will you do?

My confidence in the American spirit tells me virtually all among us would at the very least call 911, then rush next door in an attempt to help.

Would you at least attempt to save innocent lives in need?

Would self-interest be secondary?

Why then does it seem a sizable number of Americans today—20%?—are placing their “natural, G-d given rights” to immediately sit in movie theaters, eat in restaurants and watch sports in packed stadiums before the vulnerable among us?

Bus drivers, grocery store workers, custodians, police officers, EMTs, firefighters, all types of nurses, physicians, employees of homeless shelters, and every hospital worker…our fellow humans who are sick from maladies completely unrelated to this damned virus—cancers, strokes, pre-existing conditions.

Our elders—seniors—whose giant shoulders we have grown up upon…the most vulnerable now among us.

These are the “kindergartners.”

If you could potentially save at least one life simply by wearing a mask while inside a grocery store, or self isolate yourself as best you can for a few months to help prevent communal spread of an abnormally contagious virus, would you?

If your favorite movie is interrupted by the piercing screams next door, what will you do?