The United States was already an outlier in our failure to handle COVID, but since the November election, the number of daily new cases has skyrocketed even further. As of this writing, the U.S. is now regularly logging 200,000 new cases per day, shattering all previous global records as we close in on 15 million cases and 300,000 deaths. That daily rate is literally one thousand times higher than in China, a country with three times our population. More Americans now die from COVID-19 every few days than the total number of Chinese who have died from it since the pandemic began.

Even without vaccines, China and other countries have managed to suppress the coronavirus through strong leadership, effective measures, and the united efforts of their people. Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Argentina, and even our neighbor Canada have all been successful in controlling cases and enacting reopening plans. As a result, their people have been able to return to work, school, and shopping centers—while the United States, a developed country that boasts the title of “global superpower,” has seemed powerless to defend itself against the virus.

Actually, “powerless” is the wrong word. Power is potential, ability, capacity. The United States has always had those things. But it turns out power is useless if we lack something else: the will to make hard choices, and sacrifices.

Crazy Rich Asians closely examines cultural differences between East and West, with the East portrayed as prioritizing family and community over individual whims, while Westerners are seen as more selfish. Eleanor credits her own success to having sacrificed personal desires: “All this doesn’t just happen. It’s because we know to put family first.”

China didn’t go into this pandemic with any more information or resources than the United States, yet it has come out relatively intact. In the U.S., by contrast, the loss of life has been equivalent to a thousand 9/11s. Why? Because China prioritized group safety over personal convenience, choosing “Life” while the United States instead chose “Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Obviously, the choice wasn’t unanimous. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been attempts to conceive and implement a comprehensive national strategy for combating the coronavirus. But those attempts have been undermined by a right-wing campaign decrying precautions against COVID as intolerable attacks on personal liberty. President Trump and other Republican leaders have catered to this vocal (and sometimes literally armed) camp, ignoring or mocking basic measures like wearing masks and social distancing. Constitutionally guaranteed rights like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion have all been cited as justification for rejecting measures to protect others, especially the elderly and vulnerable.

Individual liberties are vitally important. Indeed, they are a defining characteristic of American society. As Americans, we each have the right to voice and act upon our beliefs. Every child is taught Patrick Henry’s motto: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” But the choice is not always that simple. Sometimes it’s not a choice, but a balancing act. When “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” come into conflict, you don’t just have rights. You have a choice. And when the stakes become life or death, you have a responsibility to choose wisely.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl writes: “Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” Abnegating responsibility means ignoring half of what it means to be an American—or for that matter, an adult. Indeed, the legal definition of adulthood is based on the recognized capacity to choose responsibly between right and wrong.

Adults also know that right and wrong are not always clear in every situation. To declare that personal liberty always automatically outweighs the lives and wellbeing of our neighbors is childish and lazy. It is this kind of extreme, unthinking, uncaring absolutism that has been our downfall in the fight against COVID. It is based on a shallow and misguided understanding of liberty.

The American tradition of personal liberty endows us with a strong sense that each of us is an independent entity. Yet we are more than just a crowd of individuals, each jealously guarding our personal freedoms. We are a community—a nation—and this requires taking into account the greater good, not just personal preference. No act is more patriotic than sacrificing to protect your fellow Americans. No act is more selfish and unpatriotic than refusing to acknowledge this shared, mutual responsibility. The same people who wave the flag and claim “Liberty” as their justification for endangering others seem to have forgotten this. Their refusal to accept the responsibility that comes with their rights is, ultimately, a denial that we are a nation. Essentially, they are saying that the United States of America does not exist, except as an excuse to do as they please.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Those are the rights nation’s founders saw as most important. If we sometimes have to choose among them, and we do, then we should clarify our choices. Temporarily curtail personal liberty and happiness in order to preserve life? Or allow other Americans to die, thereby losing any future hope of ever enjoying any rights at all? Perhaps the maskless gun-wavers shouting their willingness to die for their own rights should instead consider living for everyone’s rights.

President-Elect Biden has called upon the American people to “do what they do best: step up in a time of crisis.” But all evidence suggests that what America does best is solipsism. Effective vaccines are on the horizon, but science can only go so far when our values fail us. As recently noted in The New York Times, vaccines will be much less effective in the United States because we have already allowed the virus to spread so widely.

We need to take a tip from Rachel Chu, the protagonist of Crazy Rich Asians who is at first condemned by Eleanor for her selfish American ways. Even though she finds the Young family difficult and demanding, she does not take the easy way out by just running away with Nick. She stands up for herself, but not by clinging to blind individualism. Instead, she demonstrates her willingness to sacrifice their relationship for the good of Nick’s family. By acknowledging the needs of others, she proves that she can strike a balance between East and West, between individual liberty and the greater good. Can the United States of America do the same?

If we can’t, then what about the future? When COVID evolves, will we be left scrambling once again, unable to act or stop the infighting? If COVID-25 or COVID-93 surges with a death rate of 30, 40, or even 50 percent, will Americans finally be willing to sacrifice some of their personal freedoms for the common good? Or will our desire to exercise our liberty ironically precipitate the collapse of our nation?

Only time will tell.

Ironically, even we debate club members have not been invited to join our school administration’s conversation about whether to reopen in the fall. In fact, as adults argue on and on about whether schools should reopen, the voices of the students directly impacted by this decision are not generally sought and are all too often ignored.

I’m a junior at an all-girls boarding school and one voice among the 57 million K-12 students who have had their education disrupted by COVID-19. When summer drew to a close, my memories were not of back-to-school shopping nor of enjoying summer days with friends. Instead, they were replaced by languishing and loneliness—hallmarks of 2020.

Yet the decision has already been made for us by the board. Even my school, a boarding school with only 320 students—conditions that make containment easier and contact rates lower–announced our doors would remain closed, completely scrapping the reopening plans that the administration has been working on for what seemed to be the whole summer.

I can still hear my mom’s anguished wails; she had just booked my flight the night before the announcement. When I first heard the news, my initial reaction wasn’t one of surprise, misery, or even frustration. It was apathetic acceptance, the result of every cancelation from summer school to SATs chipping away at me until I was numb—a disheartening feeling of wasted efforts, unreachable goals, and a clouding future.

I’m tired of being confined to a name in a rectangle, lighting up yellow once in a while, then disappearing again like a broken circuit. Our wifi isn’t the only thing that’s disconnecting – we are. I have seen too many cases where students view online school as a joke: thousands of TikToks, the unmoving student on the zoom call, or where not even one student out of 30 shows up when the meeting is announced to be “optional.”

A survey of 20,000 students in grades 5 through 12 reveals that only 51 percent of students said their teachers give them assignments that help them learn, while only 39 percent said they learn a lot every day. While I’m grateful that more tests are now open book, it’s no longer the same when I can glance at my notes and take my time. In exchange for a boost in grades we have sacrificed our own learning.

The continued shutdown of schools is to protect our physical health but it comes at the cost of deteriorating mental health. Social connections fade as students continue to lack the sense of belonging they felt in school. Although many adults think the hours we spend on Instagram or Snapchat with our friends are excessive, social media has become the last thread of connection for teens in our unraveling world. Even then, it’s not enough to prevent loneliness. Except for a few close friends, it’s as if the rest of the lunch table has disappeared. By isolating ourselves physically, we have also unintentionally isolated ourselves socially and emotionally.

Cases rise uncontrolled in schools where there’s resistance to mask wearing, but in situations where teens and teachers take precautions—such as at a boarding school strictly enforcing mask-wearing and temperature policies—the educational and social benefits outweigh not going to school at all.

It appears my school has recognized that. Upon reassessment, a reopening has recently been announced. A curtain will be drawn between my roommate’s and my side of the room. Outside, students will be wearing masks as they sit on Adirondack chairs placed 6 feet apart. Classes will be divided into two classrooms, and temperature checks will take place every morning and every night. A new schedule is made, and new rules followed.

I could see the effort and the commitment from my school. Yet once again it was a decision made behind the curtains, with the board operating much like the Wizard of Oz. In a debate on our future and OUR education, most adults don’t ask us about our opinions, leaving us as passive bystanders as one decision is made after another. If we were given a chance to speak, perhaps education policies would be different today.

Instead, I’m tossed like a ragdoll, dizzily spinning through the air, wishing for it all to stop. But of course, it doesn’t. Because I’m only a toy, a pawn. From Washington to Virginia, from virtual to in person, I land wherever they decide to aim.

I pack my belongings for school with a bitter smile. In some ways, my wish was granted, but other parts of it were shattered. A boarding life without three of my closest friends. Classes where instruction time may be shortened to 20 minutes. A restrictive campus where arrows and stickers dictate where we can and cannot be.

In the meantime, I will wait with longing for the education and interactions I no longer have. I miss the presence of a physical classroom and learning without the concern of technical difficulties. I miss chatting in the noisy dining hall and walking in the silent campus past dark. I miss the weekly Target runs where too many snacks are bought and deep/insane (I can’t tell) late-night conversations at 2 a.m with my best friend.

I wait for the day I can stop by an office hour by knocking on an oak door instead of entering a call, then interact with a teacher no longer framed by a rectangle. I wait for the day where my friends and I can kick back on lawn chairs after the week’s end and raise our freshly delivered bobas to the sky in triumph–even if we still have to be six feet apart.