To­day, Palm Sun­day, Chris­tians around the world com­mem­o­rate Je­sus Christ's tri­umphant en­try in­to Jerusalem be­fore his ar­rest, cru­ci­fix­ion and res­ur­rec­tion. Usu­al­ly, there would be re-en­act­ments of this bib­li­cal event, with the faith­ful tak­ing part in pro­ces­sions, wav­ing palms in joy­ful re­mem­brance of how Christ was wel­comed and cel­e­brat­ed on that day more than 2,000 years ago.

But this Palm Sun­day is dif­fer­ent as it takes place in a sea­son of so­cial dis­tanc­ing that leaves most con­fined to their homes and on­ly able to par­tic­i­pate in church ser­vices broad­cast on tele­vi­sion and ra­dio, or streamed on­line.

COVID-19 has trans­formed the world in ways that could not be fath­omed just a few months ago as ef­forts to con­trol its spread have re­sult­ed in sharp de­par­tures from how things are usu­al­ly done.

The fi­nal days of Lent lead­ing in­to the East­er sea­son are over­shad­owed in most of the world by lock­downs and stay-at-home re­stric­tions which lim­it phys­i­cal move­ment and so­cial in­ter­ac­tions.

Sad­ly, these lim­i­ta­tions have brought out the best and worst in us. Over the past few days, many Good Samar­i­tans have been ex­tend­ing help to fel­low cit­i­zens who have been bad­ly af­fect­ed by pan­dem­ic con­di­tions in the coun­try. By look­ing out for oth­ers and be­ing their broth­ers' keep­ers they have strength­ened the ca­pac­i­ty of many to ride out these dif­fi­cult times.

Their char­i­ta­ble ges­tures stand in con­trast to the reck­less and in­con­sid­er­ate be­hav­iours of a few who have put their fel­low cit­i­zens at risk by flout­ing rules and laws put in place to lim­it the spread of COVID-19 in this coun­try.

Then there are the mis­guid­ed few in Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment who, act­ing out of fear and ig­no­rance, staged a protest on Fri­day night over plans to set up a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty in their com­mu­ni­ty. Their ac­tions were ap­par­ent­ly en­dorsed by an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the dis­trict with a com­ment that San­gre Grande should not be al­lowed to be­come "a hold­ing bay for any coro­n­avirus COVID-19 pa­tients."

It was a dis­play of in­tol­er­ance that on­ly serves to ham­per the her­culean ef­forts of the peo­ple on the front lines of the pan­dem­ic.

San­gre Grande and every com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try will ben­e­fit if there is sup­port for the pub­lic health mea­sures be­ing put in place for the care of COVID-19 pa­tients. The fa­cil­i­ties es­tab­lished in Brook­lyn Set­tle­ment are in lo­ca­tions with enough sur­round­ing acreage to serve as buffers. They will house con­va­lesc­ing pa­tients who no longer need to be in a hos­pi­tal set­ting and there is no risk of spread of the virus.

In fact, the on­ly risk of con­ta­gion is from those who are in­tent on spread­ing stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion. If this is al­lowed to get out of hand it will give the ad­van­tage to the com­mon en­e­my we all face--COVID-19.

In the spir­it of Palm Sun­day, let us stand strong in the val­ues that will take us through this cri­sis.