Beth Wilson, Olalla published 8:38 a.m. PT March 22, 2020 | Updated 8:40 a.m. PT March 22, 2020

The danger is almost invisible, until, like a friend of mine, you develop a dry cough and temperature. The risk is quite serious, but still almost invisible. There are other threats to human health that are equally ominous, or even more. As of Saturday, March 21, about 14,000 people have succumbed to COVID-19 worldwide. Did you know that over 14,000 children under the age of five die every day from preventable illnesses like pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria? Yet, those deaths are seemingly invisible to us. The reason we don’t know about them is that those children mostly live in the developing world, where access to prenatal care, adequate nutrition, immunizations, public health systems and medical care are limited or non-existent. Another threat to human health is global warming. Again, looking out my window into the forest, it’s hard to tell that the world is changing. Yet, even now, thousands of people’s lives have been lost due to the impacts of climate change, including floods, fire, drought and rising seas. It’s easy to ignore those impacts because they are not happening to me and us. Here in the U.S., we need to take the coronavirus threat very seriously and follow the recommendations of the CDC and our state and local health departments. But, we also need to recognize these other health threats that are occurring at this very moment. Children are dying and our climate is threatened. An equally strong response to those threats is required by a humane society.

Beth Wilson, Olalla