This is an opinion column.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill changed his mind.

On Tuesday, I’d asked the state’s top elections official whether we had contingency plans for voting during a coronavirus pandemic. At the time, Merrill argued that my question wasn’t worth talking about because no such thing was likely to happen.

But I’m not here to say, “I told you so.”

Instead, I’m here to say, “Thank you.”

Because on Friday, after Alabama found its first detected case of the virus, Merrill announced that voters concerned about exposure may use that as an excuse to request absentee ballots.

Unofficially and under the radar, Alabama will now have a crude vote-by-mail option that state officials had opposed for years.

This is progress.

The deadline to request an absentee ballot is March 26, but election workers will likely be overwhelmed, so don’t dilly-dally. You can find more information at the Secretary of State’s website. Also, please kindly use a sponge to “lick” those stamps and envelopes. Election workers don’t need your germs.

In the event that all this hullabaloo is just an overreaction (probably not), it could still give a lot of voters peace of mind. In the event that this thing gets serious, his change of course could save lives and preserve a sacred right.

So, thank you, John Merrill.

Our public officials should be held accountable, but in the days ahead, it will be more important than ever to allow them the freedom to change their minds, as Merrill has done. When that happens — no gloating, no knife-twisting. We’ve gotta get through this together.

Years ago, I sketched a little chart on a bar napkin. Later, I made a less crude version of it to keep on my computer desktop.

This is how apathy works. And this is how it kills us.

Every public policy failure in one chart.

The decisions our public officials must make right now are among the toughest in their careers.

The most important thing to understand about dealing with the pandemic is this: The most potent measures we have — to stop the disease, to slow it down or to protect the vulnerable — will all look premature at the moment they are most effective.

Like boarding up our windows after the hurricane hits shore — once this thing is on top of us, it will be too late.

The worst part about it for public officials is, if these measures do work, then in hindsight they will look like overreactions.

That’s a hell of a bind to be in.

And if they wait too long to break the glass and pull the levers, everyone will jeer them for doing too little too late.

I don’t envy any of them.

All the incentives here for public officials on the front end are to do nothing — which is the most likely recipe for ruin. But this week, John Merrill pulled one of those levers before it was too late. And we shouldn’t give him a hard time about it. Show him a little gratitude.

Because there are a lot of other levers left to pull. And there are many more officials sweating in front of those breaker boxes.

And the time to act is running out.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.