Americans are being heroic by adhering to "stay-at-home" orders. Their elected leaders shouldn’t punish them by caving into a loud, and selfish minority.

Social distancing is hard.

It is wearing to sit in the house day after day, frustrating to be deprived of such simple pleasures as a walk in the park or a dinner out or even the ability to distinguish one day from another.

It is nerve-wracking to go shopping, armored in face masks and caution, afraid of contact with your fellow shoppers, with the cashier. It is scary to be a worker in that store, not knowing if this is the day when the novel coronavirus gets to you.

It is devastating to be furloughed or laid off, to see your business shuttered.

Even for those of us who stay healthy, the halt to normal life is a wrecker of plans and futures.

And yet, we are doing it. Despite the great costs, we are doing it. And willingly. As of last week, 81% of Americans told the Politico/Morning Consult poll that "Americans should "continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means continued damage to the economy."

This is a remarkable display of concern for our neighbors, as well as for our own health. We are making sacrifices not just for ourselves, but for the greater good.

Yet some are cracking. They’re dressing up in the colors of the American flag, waving banners bearing "Trump" and — confusing a public-health emergency with a tyrannical infringement of liberty — demanding that public officials "reopen" the economy as if the shutdown had nothing to do with slowing down the death toll of COVID-19.

Organized by right-wing groups, publicized approvingly on right-wing news outlets and by the president himself, we saw them first in East Lansing, Mich. Then a smattering of other state capitals. And then in a caravan of about 100 vehicles that gathered on Sunday from Hollywood, Coral Springs, Boca Raton and Boynton Beach, converging on Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue.

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Leading a contingent from Boca to Delray was Boca Raton’s vice mayor, Jeremy Rodgers, who said he was acting as a private citizen. Yet the Boca Raton City Council, of which he is a member, was scheduled Tuesday evening to discuss a resolution that would ask Palm Beach County to reopen "beaches, passive public and private parks and tennis courts, and private golf courses to the public ... as soon as prudently possible."

The public pressure upon the Palm Beach County Commission is matched by the pressure from golfers who are pushing hard for permission to return to the fairways — although any one of them may be carrying the virus unknowingly. Unfortunately, they seem to have found a receptive ear in Commissioner Robert Weinroth, who has signaled a disappointing willingness to bend the rules for an influential elite.

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Palm Beach County Health Director Dr. Alina Alonso has set a good measure for when it will be safe to end social distancing: when the number of county residents diagnosed with COVID-19 drops for 14 consecutive days. We have, mercifully, slowed the daily count of confirmed COVID-19 cases; despite a fearsome 125 deaths in this county as of Tuesday morning. But no one can say when we will see the first day of decline in new cases, let alone the start of a two-week string.

Nevertheless, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was so slow to declare a statewide stay-at-home order, is now itching to get this over with as soon as he can. On Monday he announced a Re-Open Florida Task Force and said he wants recommendations by Friday. His appointees, troublingly, include one hospital administrator but no doctors, epidemiologists or scientists. He mainly plucked corporate leaders, GOP donors and fellow Republicans in the Florida Cabinet — glaringly leaving out the cabinet’s lone Democrat, Nikki Fried, who as secretary of agriculture happens to oversee Florida’s second largest industry and regulates key functions of our food supply.

DeSantis’ conspicuous show of partisan politics, as well as his demotion of scientific data and medical knowledge, mark a poor way to proceed. We need our elected leaders to lead all of us, not just the businesses that supply so much of their campaign cash or the noisy few who are honking their horns and attracting the cameras.

An overwhelming majority of Americans understand the stakes in this pandemic. Floridians are no exception. They are doing their best to keep themselves and others safe at great cost emotionally and financially.

Our elected leaders should be proud of this sacrifice. Moreover, they should be encouraging them rather than kowtowing to a selfish group of privileged few who place more value on hitting a little ball around or crowding onto a beach than the health of their neighbors.