Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia announced a unilateral cease-fire in Yemen, following months in which it had made clear its desire to disentangle from what has proved a costly and humiliating quagmire for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Coming amid a global pandemic, the announcement was welcome news. The Saudi military intervention, beginning in 2015, has been blamed for creating what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

But with the cease-fire expiring today, the lack of results – with Houthi rebels continuing to press their military advantage, and Saudi planes launching scores of airstrikes in reply – is a stark reminder of the challenges to peace that remain.

In announcing the Yemen cease-fire, the Saudis cited both the need to pave the way for peace talks and to cope with the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak in the impoverished and war-weary country.

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Other positive signs followed, including U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths telling the Security Council last week of progress toward a truce in closed-door talks between the Saudis and Houthis, with agreement expected in the “immediate future.”

The catalyst toward peace was the virus, Mr. Griffiths said, noting that Yemen could not “face two fronts at the same time: a war and a pandemic.” Yemen announced its first – and so far only – laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 on April 10. “This is the time for hard decisions,” the envoy said.

But even as the U.S. was reported Tuesday to be preparing a “substantial contribution” to help Yemen battle the coronavirus, and Yemen was set to receive tens of thousands of test kits donated by a group of multinational companies, the fighting has barely eased.

“Gap of confidence”

In return for a Saudi withdrawal, the Houthis would sign a peace deal, analysts say, and the Iran-backed Houthi movement, known as Ansar Allah, produced an eight-page proposal two weeks ago. But with battlefield momentum now in their favor, the analysts say, the Houthis expect to dictate the terms of any Saudi drawdown – which is unacceptable to Riyadh.

“As far as the Saudis are concerned, they don’t know what to do,” says Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Yemen-based Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. “They’ve given one gesture after another, but these gestures are viewed by the Houthis as empty, given the fact that there is no overall understanding of how the relationship between the two sides will be in the future. The guarantees are not there.”

The fulcrum of any deal needs to be agreement by the Saudis to stop undermining the Houthis, and agreement by the Houthis to protect Saudi borders and limit smuggling and human trafficking, says Mr. Iryani, who was a consultant to the U.N. Development Program in Yemen until the end of 2019.

“What stands in the way is this huge gap of confidence between the two sides,” he says. The Houthis need guarantees that any deal will be implemented, in order to “be willing to give up some power” to the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government – currently in exile – of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

Houthi troops ride on the back of a police patrol truck after participating in a gathering of Houthis in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 19, 2020.

The Saudi cease-fire has barely dented the conflict, nor slowed the Houthi military advance on Marib, an oil- and gas-rich prize and one of the last strongholds of pro-Hadi forces in northern Yemen.

The Saudis face another crisis in the south, where a militia backed by the United Arab Emirates warned this week that “the outbreak of war is imminent” as they advance against Saudi-backed government forces.

Houthis “need” the war

“The Saudis want out; the solution for the Saudis is, ‘COVID-19 is a wonderful way for us to get out respectably, and start focusing on the rest of our problems, which are not insignificant,’” says Helen Lackner, a Yemen expert and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“But the Houthis won’t let them go. The Houthis want this war to go on, they don’t want this war to stop. They need it,” says Ms. Lackner, noting current rebel advances, and how the conflict and flow of humanitarian aid have boosted Houthi resources.

“You have a fundamental, objective problem: The Saudis want out, the Houthis don’t. How do you deal with this?” asks Ms. Lackner, author of the 2019 book “Yemen in Crisis: The Road to War.”

Saudi Arabia has been widely accused of elevating Yemen’s civil war into a regional proxy conflagration along familiar Middle Eastern fault lines, which pit Iran and its self-declared “axis of resistance” against Saudi Arabia and its pro-American allies.

When Saudi officials first intervened in Yemen, leading an Arab coalition to reverse the Houthi takeover of Sanaa and reinstall the Hadi government, they promised that “Operation Decisive Storm” would be over within weeks.

Yet instead of a demonstration of Saudi military prowess ordered by the new and assertive crown prince, the Yemen initiative has turned into a venture that is failing, even after the application of more than 20,000 air raids, according to the Yemen Data Project, and the loss of more than 100,000 lives – nearly all of them Yemeni, and many of them civilians.

“Why [the Saudis] don’t declare victory and go home is a question I asked about three years ago, and it would have been a lot easier for them to declare victory [then] than it is today,” says Ms. Lackner. “Can they announce the extension of a cease-fire that hasn’t actually happened?”

Overshadowing the battlefield to-and-fro is the looming risk of the coronavirus to one of the most vulnerable populations on earth. Already with 80% of Yemen’s population reliant on aid relief, and hospitals and health infrastructure ravaged by the war, the coronavirus “could spread fast, more widely and with deadlier consequences than in many other countries,” Mark Lowcock, the top U.N. aid official, warned last week.

Public image aspect

The continued fighting and few signs of any diplomatic breakthrough mean it is not yet clear how COVID-19 could affect war calculations. The U.N. counts 500 Yemenis killed or injured since January, one-third of them children.

“The big change could be if we see COVID-19 taking hold in Yemen and spreading quite quickly, as it is likely to do,” says Peter Salisbury, the senior Yemen analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“Yemen’s population is malnourished, undernourished, and it’s in very bad shape. People are already dying from preventable diseases, cholera, dengue fever, and so on. ... The population’s just incredibly vulnerable,” says Mr. Salisbury.

“There’s a public image aspect to this as well: The Houthis and government of Yemen each seek to be seen as a legitimate governing authority in Yemen, and if you are prioritizing a war over a life-threatening virus, that’s not great for your image,” he says.

“There is a lot of face to be lost in a COVID-19 outbreak,” adds Mr. Salisbury. “But for the time being, the challenge would appear to be that the Saudi initiative isn’t enough for the Houthis.”

“We’re really in a place where it depends on the willingness of one or several of the key parties to take a leap of faith ... to make gestures that build confidence from the other side,” he says. “The question right now is: How willing are the parties to really compromise, in any way?”

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Paul Sancya/AP

Steve Polet holds a sign during a protest against state lockdowns at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on April 15.

As the owner of Ken’s Greenhouses in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Mark Smit has a roomful of plants he worries will go unsold.

His anxiety isn’t really about the national all-hands-on-deck response to the coronavirus. It’s about why, in Michigan, those restrictions have veered into what appear to him to be solitary and responsible activities.

On April 9, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned travel between private residences and mandated that large stores close areas dedicated to flooring, furniture, plant nurseries, or paint. Fishing in a motorized boat is off limits, too.

Lawsuits have been filed, and Mr. Smit says the governor’s measures are “a little overkill.” But his frustration is nuanced. “I say that understanding why it was done. I’m not happy with things the way they are, but I want to be cautious about not standing on a street corner and yelling, ‘They’re making a big mistake, and I’m going under because of it!’ We’re not to that extent yet, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

That line has already been crossed for many protesters who have gathered in recent days from Lansing, Michigan, to Canton, Georgia. The events are part tea party patriotism, accented by yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, and part MAGA rally, with blue Trump 2020 banners.

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A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests the number of people aggressively agitating for states to reopen their economies is small. A Pew Research Center survey finds only 32% of Americans are more worried about lockdowns not ending quickly enough, rather than too quickly. But encouraged by President Donald Trump, who exhorted Michiganders to “liberate” their state, their voice can be loud.

Mr. Smit was not at the rally, and his opinions are not nearly so decided. Rather, like many Americans, he is wrestling with the question of whom to trust most in the time of a pandemic.

For some, the threat of COVID-19 means the government must step in to enforce safe behaviors. But Ms. Whitmer’s orders have prompted Mr. Smit, like some others, to wonder if there is a different way. Can states have more trust in Americans themselves to do the right thing?

The answer to that question has led to different paths. On the fly, an already divided nation is calibrating the balance between public health, the economy, and the role of government.

Even as Ms. Whitmer doubles down on restrictions in Michigan, a trio of Southern governors – in Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee – is scaling back restrictions this week, citing evidence that the pandemic has peaked. Movie theaters, restaurants, bowling alleys, and tattoo shops will all soon be open in Georgia, though some mayors are pushing back.

“There is a sense that an awful lot of what modern life is doing is not liberating us, but restricting us, and so then you get a pandemic and you get restrictions on steroids,” says Michael Wolff, the former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. “And of course, a big enough match can light a pretty good fire.”

Michigan Office of the Governor/AP

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer addresses the state during a speech in Lansing, on April 13.

Inside the protests

So far, protests have been small. But Mr. Trump has offered support for the cause, saying some governors were taking restrictions too far.

In Canton, Georgia, combat veteran Shane Hazel organized a small protest where people held signs that said, “We will not comply.” Some attendees wore face coverings and carried rifles.

In an interview, Mr. Hazel, a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, says it is up to Americans to “not walk beyond the firing line” and risk catching the virus.

“We can either do their one-size-fits-all, or we can unleash the American passion, the American genius, and their will to survive and overcome and triumph – to the tune of 350 million brains working on the same problem, in their best interest,” says Mr. Hazel.

The protests come as some states are already relaxing restrictions. Floridians began swarming back to the water last week after Gov. Rick DeSantis said municipalities could open up parks and beaches if done in a “safe way.”

In Manatee County, just south of St. Petersburg, a county commissioner led efforts to reopen boat ramps. “You keep it up and they’re going to rebel ... [and] we’ll be at the jail for safekeeping,” Vanessa Baugh told a meeting last week before becoming the deciding vote to reopen the ramps. State officers are policing distancing rules between boats.

“It is a tough question,” says Ms. Baugh in an interview a few days after the meeting. “Do you step on the Constitution? And, then, do you really have to step on the Constitution to do what you need to do? I don’t think we need to, not at this point.”

The protests elicit sympathy from Pamela Huberty, who owns a gift boutique in rural Crystal, Michigan. She joined a Facebook group called Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine that has amassed over 366,000 members in two weeks.

She closed her shop in compliance with the executive orders but is planning to reopen May 1 while determining how to achieve social distancing in a 1,100-square foot area.

“I call it the COVID-19 monster,” says Ms. Huberty. “The fear of this virus is going to kill us before the virus does. I see people turning on each other, and that’s the big issue right now. We’re not trusting each other.”

Whose trust?

But that trust is multifaceted, with states still maintaining strict lockdowns and worried that their sacrifices could be undone by states now reopening. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s chief epidemiologist, has warned that failure to contain the disease could mean more deaths and economic havoc down the line.

The balancing act is putting governors in a difficult situation – particularly in “purple” states like Michigan, which have strong dashes of red and blue. Governors want to do everything in their power to save lives but also don’t want to stoke anger.

“If it looks as if the government is moving too far too fast, then you’ve got sort of a tea party possibility welling up again in opposition to the heavy hand of government – and [governors] don’t want to trigger that,” says Cal Jillson, author of “American Government.”

Retiree Alan Marble from Benzie County, Michigan, has confidence in the governor. She “has the best information, the best science, and the best input from social scientists and others who know human behavior,” he says.

In the end, the issue is not as black and white as it is often portrayed. “It’s much too simple to say that someone who is willing to trade freedom for security deserves neither,” says Mr. Wolff, now a professor at St. Louis University Law School. “There is another way to look at it: ‘I can give you some of my privacy and my autonomy – temporarily – if you’ll keep me from dying.’”

“There is some flexibility in the system for the government to break the law in order to protect the public health,” Mr. Wolff adds.

In fact, a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court found that the government could set aside constitutional rights in a public health emergency. That ruling mandated smallpox vaccines. The question is how broadly and bluntly the precedent can be applied during the current pandemic.

For her part, Jennifer Stell of Mattawan, Michigan, is more than willing to curtail her activities. Her daughter lost her job as a waitress in Ann Arbor in late March. So she and her husband are delivering food and money to her by driving across the state, knocking on the door, offering a quick wave and hello before reluctantly departing back to Mattawan.

She’s “100%” in support of Ms. Whitmer. “I don’t feel that I have lost any civil liberties,” she says. “If I can’t go up north right now and hang out in a cottage to ensure that other people are going to stay healthier, I have no problem doing that.”

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The coronavirus crisis hit Spain so fast and hard that within days every ward at the Hospital HM Torrelodones near Madrid was taken over by COVID-19 patients. Single rooms were doubled up until the beds ran out. The quantity and quality of protective gear available to medical staff diminished as days gave way to nights and the cases – and death toll – mounted. Help never came from neighboring countries.

“There is no teamwork,” says Adriana Vinasco, who works as an auxiliary nurse at the hospital. “Each country took decisions on their own and in their own timing.”

The coronavirus crisis revived familiar fault lines within the eurozone, with the public health crisis hitting southern countries earlier and harder. An economic recovery will cost an estimated 10% of the European Union’s GDP, or $1.7 trillion, estimates the EU’s industry chief Thierry Beton. But it is unclear who will pay that bill, whether it will be carried only by the countries most in need, such as Italy and Spain, or if the pain will be spread across the EU to include the more financially fit Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.

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Margaritis Schinas, the EU’s “European Way of Life” commissioner, sees this as no surprise. Given the unprecedented nature and intensity of the crisis, member states initially tried to organize as best they could – although not always in a coordinated way. Now they have entered what he characterizes as a “convergence phase”: gravitating toward common solutions as the EU responds to the public health crisis while also figuring out how to mitigate its economic impact.

“There is no doubt that our way of life has been greatly affected, but the values that underpin our way of life remain always intact,” he said during an online event organized by the Center for European Analysis. “Member states found out very clearly that they have more in common than they would think – not only the market, but also the interdependence of our economies, the values, the principles, the mobility that shapes our societies in Europe.”

Hard-hit economies and health systems

The economic devastation is intense in Italy, Spain, and France, where death tolls have been high and economic shutdowns persist. Small businesses have been hit particularly hard, says Heloise de Castelnau, a Paris intellectual property and business lawyer. She is working overtime to help her clients apply for government aid so they can pay landlords, workers, and suppliers. “But the system is complicated,” she says, “and it’s about postponing taxes and extending loans but someday we will have to pay the bills. Right now it’s an emergency plan.”

Courtesy of Adriana Vinasco

Auxiliary nurse Adriana Vinasco (left) and her colleagues pose with a bouquet of flowers at Hospital HM Torrelodones where they are treating COVID-19 patients. Ms. Vinasco laments that European countries have not coordinated to fight the virus.

COVID-19 relief programs offered in France have been uneven. For example, self-employed individuals can access new forms of aid, but the amount is based on sales, which makes it hard for startups or businesses with little to no sales to qualify. Refugee entrepreneurs face additional hurdles; they don’t have the in-country credit history required to qualify for loan guarantee programs, says FAIRE, a Paris-based endowment fund for refugees.

For now, most French are looking to their own government for rescue. “The EU feels really far away,” she says. “Maybe in May, we’ll have more perspective on things.”

In Italy, the public health system suffers from under-investment, with a spending cut of €37 billion ($40 billion) over the past decade, according to the Gimbe Foundation. Now the pandemic has overwhelmed hospital systems and killed more than 25,000 people. It will need reform. “We are at risk of paying the bill of decades of cost-cutting,” says Quirino Piacevoli, who headed up the intensive care unit at a major hospital in Rome for 20 years.

What’s the ideal outcome?

The preferred solution divides cleanly along northern and southern European lines, much as it did following the global financial crisis of 2008. Then, lifelines were offered to hard-hit countries across the eurozone, but lending came with conditions largely set by wealthy countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.

People in the south felt the conditions intervened deeply in their internal affairs, says Anke Hassel, a public policy professor at Berlin’s Hertie School. For example, Greece was required to cut its minimum wage and make drastic spending cuts to get its economic house in order.

“It felt deeply unfair, and the experience of that time left very bad feelings, in particular, among southern European countries – Italy, Spain, Greece, and to some extent Portugal,” says Dr. Hassel.

Here we are 10 years later, she says, facing a similar situation. “Southern European countries are hit harder, and they don’t have the money to pay for fiscal stimuli or for their businesses to survive the crisis. They’re really facing much more hardship.”

Italy and Spain demand “coronabonds,” which would spread the borrowing risk across the European Union. France’s Emmanuel Macron also supports joint debt, saying the future of the European project is at stake.

Charles Platiau/Reuters

Medical staff from Georges Pompidou European hospital wave to neighbors and residents applauding from their balconies in support of health care workers amid the coronavirus outbreak in Paris on April 21, 2020.

However, leaders of Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria are inclined to say no. Germany, the EU’s economic powerhouse, has so far weathered COVID-19 with relatively low death tolls, and is slowly starting to reopen its economy. It’s carried budget surpluses and has kept its economy afloat with massive spending packages.

Instead, what eurozone finance ministers have so far agreed upon is a €500 billion package of emergency relief measures. “The Eurogroup last week did not close many doors,” says Francesco Nicoli, assistant professor in economics and international governance at the University of Ghent in Belgium. “It forged a short-term agreement but the real crux, the real problem is if and what to do with this recovery fund.”

Still ahead are important decisions about how to structure – and who will pay for – the very expensive economic reconstruction efforts required after the coronavirus subsides.

A make or break moment

European leaders on both sides of the divide recognize this as a make or break moment for Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called the crisis the “biggest test” the EU has faced since its foundation, while Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte goes all the way back to World War II for a greater trial.

Dr. Nicoli argues that any agreement which leaves hard-hit countries with the impression that they have been shortchanged risks empowering euroskeptic parties. In Italy, the right-wing League already boasts mass appeal, and Italians across the political spectrum are quick to express feelings of abandonment. They’re troubled that help was quicker to come from countries such as China and Cuba than from within the EU.

“The European Union has not proven to be a real union,” says Vanessa Ferreri, a pediatric nurse at the intensive care unit and neonatal pathology at the Gaslini Hospital in Genoa, Italy. “If there are countries in difficulty, they do not allow each other to sink but they support each other. These difficulties did not stem from a political error, but from a health emergency.”

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently apologized to Italy. She said it is “true that too many were not there on time when Italy needed a helping hand at the very beginning. For that, it is right that Europe as a whole offers a heartfelt apology.”

It will take time

Mr. Schinas, the EU commissioner, says the pandemic exposed an asymmetry between what people expect from the EU and the bloc’s actual competencies. How schools and hospitals are organized in a time of crisis is the prerogative of each state, however, many still turned to the EU for guidance on how to react to the pandemic.

Because Italy faced the worst of the crisis first, it provided valuable lessons for countries in the north, which helped them dampen the pandemic’s impact, notes Dr. Nicoli.

It may take a while, but he believes countries will eventually come together, as they did through the creation of the European Stability Mechanism a few years after the 2008 financial crisis or in the wake of the 2015 migration crisis. “It is a different type of crisis,” he says. “Politics [moves] much faster nowadays. This time it might take up to one year.”

Dr. Hassel, the public policy professor in Berlin, says that it’s very difficult for “both sides” of the EU argument to accept each other’s model. But “it would be really sad if Italy ends up thinking it’s all Germany’s fault.”

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Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

A normally busy highway ramp is nearly empty in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, on April 20, 2020. Los Angeles’ stay-at-home order in response to COVID-19 has caused a drop in pollution.

“Will we learn the lessons?”

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads worldwide, that question is being heard ever more widely. Yet the potentially more critical question is what lessons we’ll learn. And on at least one key policy challenge, climate change, the terms of debate have been getting clearer and starker. 

Climate change will be far from the only subject of post-pandemic policy debate, given the sheer scale of the human cost of the COVID crisis and the unprecedented economic and political actions governments are taking to constrain it. Tug of wars are certain to surface domestically on issues like welfare provision, public health, economic security, or the trade-off between surveillance and individual rights. Internationally, we'll see them on the future of badly strained international institutions, the workings of the global economy, and relations with China.

Yet even as the pandemic continues to spread, the “what lessons” question has brought a dramatically new context and urgency to the debate around climate change.

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For those already urging a far stronger worldwide response – scientists, policy specialists, politicians, and the growing numbers of grassroots campaigners inspired by the teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – the pandemic is being viewed as a potentially pivotal moment. 

They’re presenting it as important new evidence both of why action on climate change matters, and why such action is also possible if leaders summon the political will.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A came in late February, with satellite photos of mainland China in the wake of its economic shutdowns showing a dramatic drop in emissions of one toxic gas, nitrogen dioxide. By midway through March, scientists were estimating a roughly 25% decrease from the usual level of carbon emissions in China, the world’s single largest source of the pollutant.

Since then, millions of people across the world have seen and felt the environmental effects of COVID-related economic lockdowns. In large cities from New Delhi to Bangkok in Asia, London to Rome in Europe, and New York to Bogota in the Americas, not only were the streets suddenly quieter, the air was much clearer.

And in what climate activists see as an important signpost for the way forward, huge numbers of people have responded to COVID-19 – like global warming, a product of human interaction with the natural world – with generosity, altruism, and community-spirited action.

The main lesson climate activists are drawing, however, is that in times of crisis, with a scientific consensus on what is necessary and what will work, leaders can act decisively. For the advocates of stronger action on climate change, the takeaway is clear. As Ms. Thunberg remarked on a recent Zoom call with fellow activists and supporters, “every crisis needs to be treated like a crisis.”

The advocates of climate change action also know, of course, that the shutdown of wide areas of the world’s major economies is, in the longer run, neither sustainable nor desirable. Their hope – reflected in an open letter last month by an alliance of scientists, politicians, religious leaders, and climate activists – is that in the push to revive and rebuild world economies, greener priorities become the drivers.

That’s where the other side of the debate, the pushback, is likely to come to the fore. And there have already been signs of the tradeoffs that major governments are going to have to weigh.

ESA/Reuters

A combination image distributed by the European Space Agency on March 27, 2020, shows the average nitrogen dioxide concentrations from air pollution across France in March, 2019 (l.), and from March 14-25, 2020. The ESA says the reduction is due to the strict quarantine measures during the coronavirus disease outbreak.

Oil and airlines

Take the world's largest economy, the United States. The oil industry and the airlines, two major contributors to carbon emissions, have been severely hit. Given the prospect of continued low oil prices and reduced air travel even when the worst of the COVID-19 crisis has passed, the federal government will have to decide how extensively to intervene in support of their recovery. The signs from the Trump administration, at least so far, is that both are likely to receive high-priority attention.

In France, where President Emmanuel Macron has been an advocate of international action on climate change, it is clear he, too, will face difficult decisions. In an effort last year to blunt the “direct democracy” demands of yellow-vest protesters who had been staging street demonstrations across the country, he empowered a citizens’ panel to come up with policy recommendations on reducing emissions. He pledged not to ignore them. But the agenda they’ve produced includes radical constraints on everything from air travel and automobile sales to telecommunications infrastructure – now coinciding with a COVID-19 crisis that is expected to shrink France’s economy this year by at least 6%.

Nor is China immune. In the first three months of the year, its economy shrank by 6.8% – the first such contraction since official quarterly GDP figures were first released nearly three decades ago.

In theory at least, President Xi Jinping could further re-burnish his post-crisis international image by prioritizing lower-carbon technologies in his drive to get the economy growing again. 

There would be another potential advantage to doing that. The main policy tool used to respond to the last major economic jolt – the 2008 world financial crisis – might not be as attractive this time around. Back then, the answer was a huge financial stimulus. It worked. Yet it also hugely raised the scale of debt inside China, a problem President Xi has in recent years been actively seeking to bring under control.

Still, the immediate imperative – for Mr. Xi’s authoritarian regime no less than for democratically elected leaders like President Trump or President Macron – will be to get a comprehensively battered economy back in action as quickly as possible. So it’s at least as likely that the Chinese leader will focus on reviving his country’s existing economic machine.

This story was published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

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Reuters

A vendor wears a mask at a market in the old quarter Sanaa, Yemen.

One result of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a shift in perception of the weakest and most vulnerable in society. The people seen most at risk – those who are older, homeless, or incarcerated – get special attention. Health workers on the front lines, as well as employees in “essential” industries, receive priority in protection. Food banks are doing double-time in deliveries to people who are laid off and hungry.

In the United States, after the money in a federal rescue package went mainly to big businesses, Congress quickly refocused on aid to small businesses. Shake Shack, a large and well-capitalized restaurant chain, even returned its $10 million loan after a public outcry.

“Until every restaurant that needs it has had the same opportunity to receive assistance, we’re returning ours,” the company’s executives said.

On a global level, perhaps the greatest gap between strong and weak is between the U.S. and a tiny country on the Arabian peninsula. Yemen is not only the poorest country in the Middle East but, as a result of an ongoing five-year war, it has the world’s worst food crisis. Nearly half of its children under 5 are stunted from malnutrition, according to the World Food Program. Around 80% of its 24 million people require foreign aid, or what is now the world’s largest humanitarian operation.

On April 10, Yemen reported its first case of the coronavirus. With few resources to combat it and a shattered health system, one United Nations official said COVID-19 in Yemen “could spread faster, more widely and with deadlier consequences than in many other countries.” One impact could be a shutdown of aid to Yemen.

Such a possibility has set off an alarm in Washington despite its urgent focus on Americans. On April 22, the State Department told Reuters the U.S. is preparing a “substantial contribution” for Yemen to deal with the coronavirus. At the same time, a group of international companies announced it will donate tens of thousands of testing kits and medical equipment to the country.

Around the world during this crisis, examples abound of this crisis evoking new commitments to tender compassion and unexpected generosity. The crisis will end. Yet the uplift in thought – that even the most vulnerable anywhere in the world, like the citizens of Yemen, are entitled to peace and healing – should not.