It is three years from now. The pandemic has run its course, and changed the world completely. The United States is devastated. Millions of people learned the hard way that their actions (or inaction) which placed others in harms way caused the death of their loved ones. Because wearing a mask, social distancing, and other measures that scientists and other health experts warned would be necessary were ignored by a significant portion of the population, every single family in America has known tragedy and grief. Parents and grandparents died by the hundreds of thousands because kids were infected in schools and were just as likely to transmit the virus as adults. The early misinformation which claimed that kids couldn't die from COVID-19 was tragically wrong, to the grief of countless families. Because some weighed economic issues as more important than lives, the economy never recovered from the blows that massive outbreak delivered. Hospitals were completely overwhelmed, infrastructure failed spectacularly, and the number of cases kept climbing exponentially until people took steps necessary to protect themselves and their neighbors. Herd immunity was proven to be impossible because antibodies didn't last long enough, similar to other coronaviruses. Universal vaccination proved to be the only vector that stopped the virus, but it was too little, too late. Your own family has been devastated. Your kids and grandkids no longer talk to you because your actions deliberately put your wife in harms way. You had no symptoms, but you gave her the virus. She died a horrible death, gasping for air, separated from you and the rest of her family. She was infected because you determined masks were too uncomfortable and you thought social distancing was ridiculous. Because you thought the warnings were all hyperbolic and overstated. Because you didn’t love others more than you loved your own comfort and confirmation bias.
Now to my questions. Suppose the scientists and health experts are right. Suppose what you dismissed as a government conspiracy was merely the desperate measures necessary to save a population too selfish to save others. When you stand before the throne of God to give account of your actions on the judgement day, what would you tell Him? How would you justify your actions?
I am not perfect. I'm the chief of sinners. But I won't stand before Him and have to answer for not taking every action I could to protect my family, my friends, and my neighbors.