Many, many people are working in the midst of this pandemic. There are, of course, the invaluable medical workers – nurses, doctors, people keeping the hospitals clean and up and running. They are essential to helping those of us who get COVID-19 get back to health, and risking their own health to do it.

There is another side to protecting and slowing this virus as well. That is, other frontline workers.

These workers need protection too – for different, but important, reasons.

For those of us who are not sick, or don’t know we are sick, our most frequent contacts are with grocery store workers, postal workers, bus drivers and other retail workers. Many of these jobs are lower paid and many of us have probably never considered them essential until now.

It is important to do everything we can as a society to keep them safe and also keep ourselves safer as well. It has been slow going to get these workers PPE. I understand that we don’t have enough PPE, but just like with health care workers, it is crucial that these workers have protections (and much better pay – raise the wage, New Hampshire).

Over 40 workers from the transportation system in New York City have died so far, our postal workers are dying across the country and the count on grocery workers dying of the virus is continuing to climb.

We need PPEs for these workers, too. Barring that, these workers need masks and gloves. Some stores have installed Plexiglas at cash registers, but many are working without basic supplies, such as hand sanitizer.

Customers can also be helpful: We can respect social distancing, wear a mask when out in public and not take out frustrations about lack of products on workers.

We ignore these workers at their and our peril. The grocery store clerk, the bus driver, the fast-food worker are on the front lines and our society should treat them that way.

A special note on the postal service: This has always been a critical public service and it is in serious financial trouble. Call our representatives in Washington and urge them to fully fund our postal system. It is especially important to those of us in rural states.

(Jan Schaffer lives in Warner.)