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As we awake from our 2020 election nightmare — no matter which way the final results end up — those three words should haunt a weary nation.

COVID is real.

Those three words stand out from the letter sent Sunday from the Washington School District in Franklin County to its parents after an eighth grader who contracted COVID-19 succumbed to the virus and died. Peyton Baumgarth is the first child in Missouri under the age of 18 to die from the deadly virus. Since the beginning of the year, the coronavirus has devastated the nation, causing more than 230,000 deaths, with elderly and minority populations taking the biggest hits.

That the first local school-age death happened as middle schools and high schools in adjacent Rockwood and Parkway districts are preparing to open their doors for in-person instruction, and as the raging virus fills area hospitals near capacity, only serves to highlight the series of missteps the nation has embarked on led by a clueless White House.

“The family asks that we all remember to wear masks, wash hands frequently and follow guidelines,� says the letter from the school district to parents. “COVID-19 is real and they want to remind students and parents to take these precautions in and outside of school.�

COVID is real.

Of course it is. But tell that to some people in Franklin County, in St. Francois County, in some parts of west or south St. Louis County, and in most rural counties throughout Missouri. From the moment President Donald Trump called the pandemic a hoax, there has been no coming back from the devastation his failure, and the failure of those who have followed his lead, such as Gov. Mike Parson, have wreaked upon us with a rush to reopen and a refusal to act with state and national mask mandates.

Here’s what Parson said in July, as he pushed schools to reopen, and nearly every rural county in the state followed his lead:

“These kids have got to get back to school,� Parson said. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.�

A 13-year-old in Franklin County didn’t get over it.

No matter how the election turns out (I am writing this before results are known), Parson will still be the governor of this state for at least a couple of months. He can choose to listen to health care experts, including those in rural Missouri, who are continuing to beg him for a statewide mask mandate, or he can continue his stubborn addiction to Trumpism, and let deaths continue to pile up in rural Missouri, as they are in state-run veterans homes, in prisons, and now, in a school.

COVID is real.

That we are nine months into the pandemic, and still have to speak those three words is a shame, but we do, for the sake of our children and their teachers, our health care workers, our grocery store workers, our grandparents and our aging veterans. This virus is real and it is the responsibility of all of us, working in concert as fellow humans, to stop it.

The death of a 13-year-old isn’t due to one politician’s inability to lead, it’s due to our collective inability to recognize our shared humanity. That includes me. It’s my fault for taking my son to Franklin County this summer for baseball games not allowed to be played in St. Louis County that were more important than protecting a neighboring eighth grader who could end up getting COVID-19 as it spread from county to county.

Our social contract is broken and it won’t be fixed until we get beyond our political divisions and accept our own part in every single tragic death caused by this still out-of-control pandemic.

We have failed because we haven’t heeded the devastating power of three simple words shared with us by grieving parents:

COVID is real.