When I went to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital for a blood test for my annual physical, I was met with a locked front door and two tents adjacent to the emergency room. Before I could enter I had to don a mask, wipe my hands with Purell and be queried by a gowned nurse: any shortness of breath, dry cough, fever or digestive issues?

I passed muster and was escorted by a masked attendant to the lab. Masked housekeepers worked nearby. My lab test was professional yet with a sense of strict protocol. That was my introduction to the Island response to Covid-19.

Eighty years ago Vinyarders faced a very different unseen enemy and pitched in to support the World War II effort. Gail Stiller’s uncle took his turn in the Gay Head bunker, searching the waters for enemy submarines. Carole and Arne Carr’s father was a plane spotter, scanning the skies over East Chop for enemy aircraft. Betty Honey was an air raid warden, checking Tisbury houses that their shades were drawn. Joyce Stiles’ father and two uncles enlisted, making the Stiles a three-star family.

The war effort brought social change across the community. Ralph Packer’s father raised money for the Red Cross war fund and Megan Alley brought quarters to school for war bonds. Upstairs at Brickman’s, Rosalie Powell sewed bandages. Bow Van Riper’s grandfather built model ships to help Navy pilots distinguish friend and foe. Jackie Baer recalled using rationing stamps at the First National Bank. Bob Penney had sugar rationing at his family’s dinette on Circuit avenue. Everett Poole hung out with Navy personnel on Peaked Hill for a free meal, while Ann Barry supplied Chilmark Coast Guardsmen with beer.

President Roosevelt visited Vineyard waters in the summer of 1941 ostensibly to enjoy fishing off Menemsha. Actually, FDR used the Vineyard as a decoy for a secret mission to Newfoundland to meet Winston Churchill and sign the Atlantic Charter, an agreement between two allies to offer mutual aide against the enemy.

A phalanx of off-Island Navy personnel was sent to patrol our beaches from this unseen enemy. Steamship service was curtailed as half our fleet was dispatched to Europe in preparation for D-Day. An army invaded the North Shore of Martha’s Vineyard in a practice run for Normandy.

Life changed dramatically over the war years and was changed forever afterward.

While locals contributed to the war effort in the 1940s — sewing bandages, rationing and curtailing automobile use — today my wife Joyce sews masks for family and friends as we practice social distancing. We limit excessive purchases so there is enough to go around via voluntary rationing of Lysol and Purell. We don’t lower our blinds at night to deceive the enemy. Instead, we plug in our Christmas lights. Victory gardens are starting to sprout.

As in World War II, we don’t know the outcome, the time-frame or the eventual impact of the coronavirus. We all know someone who knows someone who has faced the disease. We are living on the edge, recognizing our lives have been unalterably changed.

But going forward, just as following World War II, we will be a closer-knit community, appreciating the import of friends and family, health and safety. We are apart and yet all in this together.

Thomas Dresser lives in Oak Bluffs.