As the country moves into its fourth pandemic month, the wide differences of opinion about what we should do now have become very divisive.

We have two extreme opposite points of view that are on the rise. There are those who feel we should still stay home. TV doctors warn of new spikes of the disease if we go back into the world. Then are those who say that enough is enough. We need to get back to work and back to the life we once knew.

Many who say we should stay inside this entire summer and through the predicted spike of the virus in the fall have stable incomes and do not have problems paying their bills or worries about filing for bankruptcy like those who have lost their jobs and incomes.

Somewhere between these extreme teams is another group of people who feel we should let everyone decide for themselves what they want to do in regard to following or not following the restrictive guidelines.

Speaking of restrictions, and with all due respect to their purpose in keeping us safe from infection, their implementation in many social situations seems highly impractical and can cause further problems.

Try to breathe while wearing a mask at the beach on a 90-degree day. If lifeguards blow whistles to keep social distancing how will they know if the very close swimmers over there or over here are a family or a group of strangers?

Some community pools will open with limits on the number of people allowed to attend. I’ve heard that one in particular is considering allowing a certain number in and then will tell them they must leave after so much time has passed so another group then can come in. This operation will have to be policed by volunteers, and you can imagine the arguments that will come from agitated comers and goers.

Little League Baseball wants to also limit numbers of parents and fans in attendance. With bad parent behavior already an issue at our athletic fields, policing this operation will be a task and just might require actual police officers to stand at the gates to the fields.

The players will have to wear masks and sit 6 feet apart while on the bench. When a base runner goes from first to home on a long hit, and then back to the bench, he will be expected to put on his mask while he is still trying to catch his breath. Coaches have to wear masks, and gloves and baseballs have to be cleaned or replaced every inning. What do you use to clean a baseball? Any substance applied can affect the motion of the ball.

All this stay home, go back out into the world tension has been elevated by conflicting political and health advice from federal and local levels.

We go out and get our economy moving, but that causes a spike in infections. We stay home and the economy collapses into another Great Depression and then when a largely unproven vaccine is rushed forth, how do we know this will work and won’t cause other serious health issues?

The website WebMD reports that 80% of the coronavirus infections are mild and not life threatening. That’s enough for some to shout, “I got to work. I got to live. If I get it, I’ll survive.”

Others will shout, “Yeah, but you might be in the 20% who get really sick or you might pass the disease to somebody else who will die from it.”

Whatever we as individuals decide to do this summer and beyond can further divide an already fractured American society.

The healing of a wounded America can only begin if we respect those who disagree with us and accept the actions that people take that differ from ours. Respect those who wear masks. Stay away from those who don’t, but respect their decision not to. Respect those who stay home. Respect those who need to go out and work.

The truth is that no one politician and no one doctor knows all the facts about this virus so all they can do is offer advice based upon educated conjecture. We believe this politician, but not that one, this doctor, but not that one and suddenly, we are all self-proclaimed experts trusting data that continues to be questioned for accuracy.

Author Bill Bullard wrote, “Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge … is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

As social media voices clamor what is right and what is wrong, how about we all think outside our own heads and try to understand the struggles others are going through.

The bottom line is if we are all in this together then we’d better come out of this together or we will be all be infected with another terminal illness that no vaccine will help us survive.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.