A pandemic, rightly, is a time of fear.

But in the midst of dark, fearsome times, the bright light of courage shines in particularly stark relief.

We were struck by the courage of dozens who came forward – our reporter’s database tracked more than 30 individuals – from inside and outside of the JBS beef plant in Greeley in the past few weeks. Their uncommon openness sparked, informed and bolstered reporting by this and many other journalism outlets, which has led to the unprecedented temporary closure of the county’s largest employer.

It’s notable and timely that, as JBS was in the process of closing down this past week, an extremely similar scenario was playing out just a little differently about 600 miles northeast of our local plant. Pork processor Smithfield, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, drug its feet in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now has become an internationally noticed hotspot for the virus as a result.

Perhaps a few more weeks – or even days – of caution from the whistleblowers of JBS and we’d be seeing something very similar here. As it is, Greeley is still a smaller-scale hotspot in Colorado, very likely related to the plant’s presence, as over 100 JBS employees – about 10% of the county’s positive cases – have been reported to have tested positive, and far, far more are likely as-yet untested.

But it was the bravery of the kind of people with the most to lose who came forward at long last – most anonymously, but a courageous few with their names and livelihoods on the line – that has surely saved lives in Greeley, Evans and beyond.

Consider the kind of people who put themselves in danger of reprisal by stamping their names on their reports to the newspaper and others of insufficient communication and protection inside the plant, which, in just a couple weeks, brought the plant from a “100% confidence” level, in the words of the company’s CEO, to this never-before-seen temporary closure.

These are folks who have little to fall back upon if they lose their jobs, in terms of savings, schooling or training. They’re folks supporting families, our much-lauded-of-late essential workers, who have been long under-appreciated and have paid for it with their lives. They had more reason to fear retribution than most.

And yet their concern for their families, their coworkers and their communities overwhelmed their fear. And in the face of fear, they heroically stood up, told their stories and, in so doing, brought down a behemoth.

We applaud them, even the anonymous ones, and we are grateful for their trust in the newspaper and other media outlets to treat their stories with the concern and respect they deserved.

They did it. They saved countless lives. And they should not be forgotten.