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We get it, but please hang tight

It is easy to dismiss those protesting COVID-19 stay-in-place policies as wing nuts, whackadoodles or conspiracy theorists who don’t understand the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. And surely there are many who fit those descriptions among those who are flooding big cities and state capitals around the country — including, on Wednesday, Albany.

Just the fact that many of the Albany protestors wore masks suggested that they didn’t even believe their own message about the coronavirus being less dangerous than the government.

And yet, there are many among us who are quietly and earnestly waiting to get back to their regular lives — not because they’re too selfish or stupid to grasp the enormity of our nation’s situation with COVID-19, but because they need to work and earn a living.

People who have struggled to get by for years are still struggling, and thanks to the economic shutdown, getting by has gotten more difficult. Many people have lost their jobs. Bills pile up while income dwindles. Many struggle to put food on the table. That’s why food pantries and soup kitchens are especially busy now.

Try being on the margins and struggling to get the unemployment benefits lawmakers promised a month ago. Watch the cupboards slowly get bare while waiting on a federal stimulus check that never seems to show up while federal lawmakers dither over how to send them or whose name ends up on the check. Try telling your children that things will be OK while wondering if you are going to be furloughed because your company was waiting on a Payroll Protection Program loan, only to read in the newspaper that the loan program is out of money.

Yet they feel that when they try to speak up, they are shouted down for being ignorant or greedy or selfish. That frustration eventually leads to bitterness and distrust.

We get all that.

Still, we respectfully disagree with the protesters outside the state Capitol. Much, though not all, of their demonstration was plain old party politics, and they may find that New Yorkers are less receptive to that kind of thing amid a pandemic crisis.

As terrible as the economic blow is, we still think people should follow the state’s restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus and save lives. The vast majority of the people we talk to agree with this.

We suspect — although it’s impossible to prove — that following these orders has already saved many thousands of lives. Maybe the main reason there are still no COVID-19 deaths in Essex and Franklin counties yet is that Gov. Andrew Cuomo put all of New York state on “PAUSE” when he did, not just the New York City metro area where the outbreak was worst.

There are no good options in a time of plague, but what leader in a position of great responsibility would willingly let more people die — perhaps hundreds of thousands more? When the history books are written, would you rather it be said that we, as a people, saved lives or saved prosperity?

To Cuomo’s credit, when people told him different parts of New York state should reopen at different times, he agreed.

Still, the imposition of another month of staying in place has heightened the very real economic anxiety many people are dealing with.

It’s easy to dismiss people who are starting to chafe at staying home. Show some empathy — they may be chafing for a reason.

Nevertheless, we as a people need to keep following doctors’ orders and ride this pandemic out. Breaking quarantine too soon could erase the good it has done, the lives it has saved.

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