The “worst is over” for New York, says Governor Cuomo—as long as we stay the course.

But the good news, of course, comes at a price. More than 11,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19 so far. Hospital morgues are so full that corpses are being forklifted into refrigerated trucks. Inside hospitals, people are dying alone, isolated from their loved ones, unable to say goodbye. Hospital workers say it’s the loneliest pandemic they’ve ever seen. Patients die without loved ones present, and nurses can’t even comfort the families, to guide them through grief.

But the fearless dedication and determination of hospital frontline workers keeps everyone going. Volunteers and non-profits are feeding hospital workers. Listening to an entire city break into cheer, with car honks filling the crisp air in support of frontline workers at 7 pm every day, is both heartwarming and energizing. Nothing will break this beloved city’s spirit.

But when deaths subside, it will still be hell for the living.

COVID isn’t our only enemy. There is also hunger. For now, non-profits making sure hospital workers get enough to eat while working 15 plus hour shifts say feeding these hungry people is just the first wave. There are now more than 26.5 million unemployed in the United States and the numbers keep rising. Just think about it—an army of unemployed desperate for food.

Many people live paycheck to paycheck. They may not have savings but, for now, they still have food on their tables. That will change. Many people can’t even sign up for unemployment because the system is so overloaded. For now, many of the unemployed are relying on loans from their parents and friends. But when that money runs out, the unemployed will be the next wave of the hungry. Expect bread lines longer than those during the Great Depression.

And yet, at the same time as there are tens of millions of people going hungry in the United States, farmers across the country are destroying their crops, dumping their milk, and breaking their chicken eggs. The farmers lost their buyers—almost all of the nation’s restaurants and schools have shut down. They can’t afford to hire workers to pull their produce from the ground. So they destroy what they have. As children starve. It doesn’t make sense.

Across the country, families recently celebrated the holidays of Easter and Passover. Biblical plagues never seemed more relevant, or more real. Jews use the collective “we” to refer to their ancestors back then—identifying that strongly with the enslaved Jews who left Egypt for freedom. Now, we must take care of each other more than ever. Today, we can’t count on anyone to create manna from heaven.

Nor do we need it. We have more than enough food here on earth. Let’s not destroy abundance while others starve. There has to be a better way.