As the coronavirus pandemic ravages the United States and the world, our society’s problems have become all the more clear: a for-profit health care and housing system, low wages and lack of unions, and a decrepit welfare state that fails to catch people even when they fall. But another thing has become apparent as well: people’s immense capacity for generosity and compassion. Neighbors are putting rainbows on their windows to send messages of hope, supporters are buying meals for health care workers, and scores of people are volunteering at food banks to help fill the gaps for the millions who have been laid off. And essential workers are continuing to work — often going above and beyond what’s expected of them — at their own personal risk.

Yesterday, we learned of the death of another essential worker, Paul Cary, a paramedic from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Cary volunteered to travel to New York at the end of March to help relieve the city’s overwhelmed EMS services. He eventually contracted COVID-19 and, on April 30, succumbed to the virus. “On Sunday,” the Washington Post reports, “a procession of ambulances and firetrucks carried him home to his family in Colorado.”

Leilani Jordan, a twenty-seven-year-old grocery store worker in Maryland, was another worker who put her life on the line. Jordan suffered from cerebral palsy, making her more vulnerable to the virus’s deadly effects. But she told her mom in March: “I’m going to still go to work. I want to help.” By the end of the month, she was on a ventilator, battling for her life. She didn’t make it.