Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic/AP

Democratic challenger Mark Kelly (left) arrives to debate Arizona GOP Sen. Martha McSally at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Oct. 6, 2020.

Two years ago, Yasser Sanchez was all in for Martha McSally. An influential leader in the Latino community, he took the Republican Senate candidate around to Spanish-language radio, television, and newspapers. He put up signs for her.

Now, he’s planning to vote for her opponent.

Senator McSally, Mr. Sanchez explains, is in lockstep with President Donald Trump – whom he vigorously opposes. “I thought she could be the next maverick from Arizona,” says Mr. Sanchez, about the first female fighter pilot in the United States to fly and lead a squadron in combat. But “she will do whatever the party tells her, because if not, it will make her life impossible. She holds tight to the president.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that next month’s election in this once conservative stronghold could determine control of the White House and the Senate, as well as a state legislature that’s been dominated by Republicans for more than half a century. With just weeks to go, both parties are pouring resources into a state that went for Mr. Trump by 3.5 percentage points in 2016, but has been rapidly shifting from red to purple – and now, maybe blue. 

On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris were expected in the state, their first joint campaign appearance since the convention. Vice President Mike Pence was also scheduled to visit, for the fourth time. President Trump was supposed to hold two Arizona rallies this week, but those were put off after his COVID-19 diagnosis.

Courtesy of Yasser Sanchez

Yasser Sanchez, a prominent immigration attorney in Mesa, Arizona, stands in front of a billboard in September 2020. The former Republican paid for the message on 10 billboards, timed to coincide with a visit from the president.

In many ways, Mr. Sanchez embodies Arizona’s changing electorate. An immigration lawyer and family man, he’s originally from Mexico – and is part of a growing Latino population that is becoming a larger share of the vote here and leans heavily Democratic. Mr. Sanchez himself quit the GOP last year, saying he’s “fed up” with the president’s values and his attacks on immigrants, among other reasons. He plans to vote for Mr. Biden for president – joining other crossover Arizonans like the late Sen. John McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain.

Perhaps most crucially, Mr. Sanchez lives in Maricopa County – a longtime Republican electoral fortress that encompasses Phoenix and its fast-growing suburbs. Maricopa, combined with reliably blue Tucson in Pima County, now accounts for more than three-quarters of Arizona votes. That urban tilt could propel Democrats to a stronger showing in Arizona than in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, all of which have much larger concentrations of rural voters.

“Arizona is a rapidly changing state. Maricopa County alone is about 60% of the vote, and that’s a rapidly diversifying, well-educated area,” says Jessica Taylor, who follows the Senate for the Cook Political Report. The report now rates Arizona as “lean Democrat” for both the presidential and Senate races.

Maricopa County is the “bellwether,” says Democratic consultant Chad Campbell, at Strategies360 in Phoenix. “Once Maricopa goes Democratic consistently, if you’re a Republican, you have serious problems,” says the former legislator in the Arizona House.

Bellwether Maricopa County

Two years ago, Arizona voters sent Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate; she beat then-Representative McSally by 2.4 percentage points. It was the first time the state had elected a Democratic senator since the early 1980s. Later that year, the governor appointed Ms. McSally to the seat of the late Senator McCain, setting up this year’s election to fill out the final two years of his term.

Senator McSally’s Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, is a former Navy fighter pilot and space shuttle commander. Many here know him as the husband of Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman from Tucson, widely admired for her struggle to recover from an assassination attempt in 2011, when she was shot in the head at an outdoor event. Six people died in the mass shooting, and the couple have become strong advocates for “common-sense” gun regulations.

On a recent Saturday in the Ahwatukee section of Phoenix, about 25 Democratic volunteers were gathering at 8 a.m. to pick up signs and literature to drop on driveways. Democrats have not been knocking on doors due to the pandemic, but have aggressively reached out to voters through texts, calls, social media, and handwritten postcards and letters – along with a deluge of advertising.

Those who show up mirror the trends moving in Democrats’ favor.

There’s Barbara Geiswite, a recently retired dental assistant, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but switched her registration from Republican to Democrat in April after her son urged her “to think for myself.” Mark Swanson, an independent, has cast votes for both parties, but this year plans to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot: “We need to restore balance in the country.” 

Helping behind the scenes is a recent graduate from Arizona State University, John Gimenez. He works in marketing for a mortgage company, and in his spare time helps the local Democratic Party with social media and digital advertising. When he was 11, his parents – immigrants from the Philippines – moved the family from Los Angeles to Arizona, where housing was much more affordable. It’s a typical story and helps explain Maricopa County’s nearly 50% population increase over the past two decades. The state is the fastest growing in the nation and is expected to gain a congressional seat after this year’s census.

When Mr. Gimenez began to come out as gay in high school, he says it was clear which political party he would support. “There was one side actively fighting against me and one side actively fighting for me.” He started the first Young Democrats club at Hamilton High School in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb that has attracted a lot of young families. The club had three members, including himself.

Republican refugees

In recent years, the influx to Arizona has included younger people from all over the country – not just retirees from the conservative Midwest. “People don’t realize it if they don’t live here,” notes Mr. Campbell, the Democratic strategist. “We have a young population, heavily Latino, that is much more progressive on a lot of issues.” 

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Sue Harrison, vice president of the PebbleCreek Republican Club, participates in a flag-waving and voter registration event in Goodyear, Arizona, on Sept. 26, 2020. She calls President Donald Trump "a salty sailor who gets things done."

But Republicans are also still heading to Arizona, many of them political refugees from the West and East coasts. “They are happy to come here, where they can be free to be conservatives,” says Sue Harrison, vice president of the Republican Club at PebbleCreek, a luxury retirement resort in Goodyear, a suburb of Phoenix that’s also part of Maricopa County.

Ms. Harrison is sitting on a folding chair on a busy corner near the resort, registering newcomers to vote, while a few dozen people wave Trump signs and American flags at honking cars and roaring Harleys as they pass by.

One of the flag-wavers is Denice Ballas, who moved to the resort about three months ago from Pleasanton, California. She and her husband were the only ones in their old neighborhood to put up a Trump sign – though under cover of night, she says, people would knock on their front door and thank them.

Several people in the group note with concern that more and more progressives are moving to their community. One quotes a favorite T-shirt: “Don’t California My Arizona.”

Caroline Anderegg, spokeswoman for the McSally campaign, dismisses concerns about Maricopa County turning blue, calling them “a lot of opinions by the chattering class.” Still, she emphasizes that the senator was ranked the sixth-most bipartisan senator by the Lugar Center at Georgetown University. Ms. McSally recently won the endorsement of a group of Hispanic faith leaders who applaud her stance against abortion rights and in favor of religious freedom. “Latinos are not a monolith,” says Ms. Anderegg.

Growing Latino clout

That’s true, but in 2018, three-quarters of them voted Democratic in Arizona, according to polling firm Latino Decisions and the Democratic data company Catalist. Latinos played a significant role in Senator Sinema’s victory and were a higher proportion of the electorate that year, up by three percentage points from 2014.

Despite the pandemic, grassroots organizers have managed to register more than 160,000 new Latino voters so far, about 80% of them in Maricopa County, says Eduardo Sainz, state director for Mi Familia Vota. That tops 100,000 new voters four years ago.

“We’ve made a years-long effort to hear from and reach Latino voters across the state,” said Kelly campaign spokesman Jacob Peters, in a statement to the Monitor. 

Top of mind for Latinos are health care, jobs, and education. Immigration is also part of the mix.

Immigration attorney Mr. Sanchez blasts President Trump’s 2017 pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an immigration hard-liner, as a “blatant attack” on the Latino community. Latinos helped oust Mr. Arpaio, a Republican, in 2016, even as Mr. Trump won the county and the state. Mr. Arpaio, along with Arizona’s highly controversial stop-and-check-immigration-status law, known as SB 1070, turned off a generation of Latinos to Republicans, many say.

“We already went through this anti-[immigrant] wave,” says Mr. Sanchez, whose reception room features a photo album of people he has helped obtain green cards and citizenship. “We thought we moved past that – and Donald Trump came and [revived] all these things we rejected, and made them national.”

Mr. Sanchez is running get-out-the-vote events from his law-firm parking lot in Mesa, right around the corner from the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose followers founded the city in the late 1800s. He himself is a committed church member who leads services – and one of a number of Latter-day Saints who have turned against the president. In Arizona, the most prominent is former Sen. Jeff Flake. Utah’s Sen. Mitt Romney is another.

Masked-up, he distributes Biden signs, stickers, and “Adios Trump” T-shirts. Last month, he posted that same message on 10 billboards during President Trump’s visit. Next up: a caravan drive for Mr. Biden. All efforts are socially distant (Mr. Sanchez was in bed for 10 days with the virus earlier this year), but he’s concerned the lack of in-person events and canvassing is hurting outreach.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to reporters as he departs Wilmington, Delaware, Oct. 8, 2020, en route to Arizona.

Republicans, by contrast, have been full-throttle with in-person events, including visits from the president, vice president, and various surrogates. Their turnout operation is a well-oiled machine. “People have amnesia and forget the president did win Arizona in 2016,” points out Ms. Anderegg. “While the state is incredibly independent, it is a right-leaning state.”

Republican consultant Sean Noble believes Senator McSally will ride President Trump’s coattails to victory. He estimates there are still some 100,000 new votes to be found for Mr. Trump, compared with 2016 – from conservatives who voted for the libertarian or a write-in candidate, or who left the first line of the ballot blank. Now that they’ve seen what the president has done on things like taxes, regulations, and judges – especially the Supreme Court – they may be on board.

“I just have a hard time thinking the character shot at the president is going to matter,” he adds. “It didn’t matter in ’16 even after the [“Access Hollywood”] tape came out.”

That’s certainly true for the flag-wavers of PebbleCreek. “Promises made, promises kept,” says Ms. Harrison, who describes the president as a “salty sailor who gets things done.”

Still, Democrats are hopeful that years of grassroots engagement of Latinos, combined with shifting demographics and the anti-Trump factor, will make this the year that Arizona finally turns blue.

“It’s a perfect storm,” says Democratic consultant Adam Kinsey. “We have a spectacular top-of-ticket with Biden, Harris, and Kelly, and all this engagement work being done. It’s very exciting, as a long-suffering Arizona Democrat.”

When Israel reimposed a lockdown ahead of the Jewish new year last month to rein in a runaway second wave of COVID-19, the government made a controversial exception – allowing large groups of worshippers to congregate inside synagogues for High Holy Day services against the advice of public health experts.

But in the tiny desert hamlet of Yeruham, which had become a pandemic hotspot following a party thrown by high schoolers, Mayor Tal Ohana opted for stricter limitations, teaming up with the town’s chief rabbi in an appeal to the religious community to shutter synagogues and move services outside.

The outreach was one piece of a homegrown public health operation spearheaded by Ms. Ohana that successfully stemmed an outbreak in just a few weeks, turning a small town into a model for the rest of the country.

“The mayor and I spoke personally with all of the rabbis, prayer leaders, and congregants. Our message to them was that we don’t want to prohibit prayers, we are just moving prayers to another place,” says Yeruham Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Shalev. “I’m not interested in the guidelines. I care about saving lives – that is a religious imperative that takes precedence over everything else.”

Yeruham’s cooperation on worship stands out as a rare bright spot at a time Israel’s social fabric is being strained by the politicization of the pandemic. The story of a boot-strapped contact-tracing operation helmed by the 36-year old mayor is the mirror opposite of that of a national government accused of mismanagement and a sluggish response even as the leaders themselves violated the rules.

“We took responsibility from the get go,” Ms. Ohana says, explaining why local authorities can do better in reining in community spread, where outsiders from the national government are at a disadvantage. “I realized we needed to manage on our own. There’s a lot of local wisdom and nuance, that one who isn’t familiar wouldn’t understand.”

Beyond Ms. Ohana’s remote Negev town of fewer than 11,000, Israel’s pandemic malaise plays out nightly on two fronts.

Mass protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his corruption trial and his handling of the coronavirus have turned into violent clashes with police trying to enforce lockdown restrictions on demonstrations. Protesters accuse the government of exploiting the pandemic to crush democratic dissent, while Mr. Netanyahu has accused them of spreading the virus.

Worsening divides

On the other front, police have used force to attempt to crack down on mass gatherings in cloistered ultra-Orthodox communities that have flouted lockdown restrictions. That defiance comes even though the coalition government, bowing to the influence of religious parties, made an exception to a 10-person limit on indoor gatherings, allowing synagogues to be subdivided into “capsules” of 10 to 25 worshippers separated by plastic dividers.

“Political and social divides have worsened, most of all the divide between the ultra-Orthodox and everyone else on the other side,” says Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli American author.

“Ultra-Orthodox separatism is a problem for Israeli society in normal times, it becomes an acute danger in a time of medical crisis,” adds Mr. Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem.

“The other divide in Israeli society is over Netanyahu himself,” he says. “One side sees him as indispensable, the only one who can keep them safe, while the other side sees him as a danger. The corona crisis has intensified the rage of the latter group, who accuse the prime minister of playing with the lives of Israelis for his own political needs.”

Sebastian Scheiner/AP

Celebrants recite prayers for the Jewish harvest and pilgrimage festival of Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles, while waving fronds of palm, willow, and myrtle at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City, Oct. 5, 2020.

The government has been widely criticized for reopening the economy and schools too quickly, dropping the ball on scaling up contact tracing, tolerating lockdown violations by its own members, and letting political considerations delay implementation of a plan by public health experts for selective closures and restrictions instead of a nationwide shutdown. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party has accordingly plummeted in the polls in recent months.

Fasting in 100-degree heat

Rising frustration with the government along with the mutual recriminations among the country’s various political tribes made it more difficult ahead of the recent lockdown to get buy-in from local residents, says Yeruham’s Rabbi Shalev.

“We are in an emergency,” he says. “It’s as if all of Israel is together on a ship at sea. And one person wants to drill a hole in their cabin, but it endangers everyone. There is a feeling among the public that if my neighbor is drilling a hole, then it’s OK for me to do it as well. And that’s a very big danger.”

While Mayor Ohana road-tripped to army bases to borrow camouflage netting to create shade for outdoor worship on Rosh Hashana, the new year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Rabbi Shalev gave out guidelines on adjusting the timing and duration of services to avoid prayer and fasting in 100-degree heat.

Though there was ample debate over how to modify the solemn services for outdoors, the experience of worshipping in the public space was hailed as uplifting and inclusive.

“Togetherness is a very good word for it. It was an even bigger opportunity for neighbors to be part of it, and it was more accessible for women,” says Rabbi Yonatan Wolff, a yeshiva teacher in the town, referring to the gender separation in Orthodox synagogues. “It was a nice way to compromise and have a special prayer atmosphere.”

Media celebrities

Yeruham, normally known as a dusty, lower socioeconomic “development town” of immigrants, and Mayor Ohana have become celebrities in the Israeli media. The national government and big cities have taken notice as well. Prime Minister Netanyahu held a Zoom meeting Wednesday with Israeli mayors to discuss improving coordination.

“He has centralized management of the pandemic, and now that it’s not working he convened mayors and said let me give you more power,” says Tal Schneider, a columnist for the financial daily Globes who profiled Ms. Ohana. “It’s too little too late.”

Israel has gone from crushing the curve of the coronavirus outbreak in the spring to having one of the highest rates of infection and new deaths per capita in the fall. When Israel imposed its first lockdown in March, about 60% of Israelis thought the restrictions were appropriate, while only 32% thought the same about the restrictions that took effect Sept. 18, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute.

Ultra-Orthodox individuals accounted for 40% of new coronavirus cases in late September, stoking criticism that authorities have permitted ultra-Orthodox cities and neighborhoods to operate as autonomous entities.  

Ms. Ohana also spearheaded outreach to Yeruham’s ultra-Orthodox community, which makes up a little less than 10% of the city’s population. She credits rabbis with enforcing quarantines through communal sanctions and says parents agreed to get tests for kids returning from religious boarding schools in hot spots. “They did things that were out of the ordinary,” she says.

From the high school students who sparked Yeruham’s September outbreak, Mayor Ohana required a dose of community service: staffing the town’s contact-tracing operation and outreach to the city’s older adults.

Taking a cue from Yeruham, Tel Aviv this week announced its own contact tracing and outreach operation. Asked by a public television reporter for some advice to encourage a frustrated country, Ms. Ohana’s advice was surprisingly simple.

“Enough of the infighting. Everyone does to the best of their ability,” she said. “Listen to the experts. Every guideline is etched in blood. If we all have faith, and take personal responsibility, everything will work out.”

Scholars of the post-Soviet region often say that the collapse of the USSR is a yet-unfinished process with many surprises still in store. The sudden eruption of large-scale war between Armenia and Azerbaijan almost two weeks ago is exactly the sort of thing they are talking about.

For nearly three decades, large portions of the once continent-straddling Soviet colossus have been drifting away from its former power center in Moscow and into the orbits of more traditional regional powers. In the west, states like Ukraine and Belarus are drawn toward more successful European neighbors. In the east, China has been quietly expanding its leverage over the ex-Soviet states of central Asia.

Now, thanks to the assertive reappearance of another traditional regional power, Turkey – which is firmly siding with Azerbaijan – the South Caucasus region could be torn from Moscow’s sphere of influence. It’s an indication that the seeming collapse in the predictable world order isn’t just something afflicting the West, but that it’s affecting countries like Russia as well.

Russia on the sidelines

Ever since a Russian-brokered cease-fire ended the first big Armenian-Azeri war over the disputed Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh – which is legally Azeri territory – in 1994, Moscow has policed an uneasy status quo that kept Armenia’s victory and huge territorial gains in that war largely intact. Though Russia has a formal military alliance and other strong ties with Armenia, it has in practice cultivated good relations with both sides and has even been the major arms supplier to both countries. That conferred a lot of influence. Indeed, when the last major round of fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh exploded in 2016, Moscow was able to compel the two sides to pull back and accept a full cease-fire well inside of a week.

That is not going to happen this time. Thanks to Turkish armaments, advice, diplomatic support, and the widely reported insertion of thousands of Turkish-allied Syrian fighters into the battle zone, Azerbaijan believes it can continue its war to recover what it sees as its lost territories without bending to Russian authority.

That new reality has already caused the Kremlin to step back and declare that the fighting is not its direct concern as long as it is only taking place on Armenian-occupied territories that are internationally recognized as Azerbaijani. Despite having a strong, NATO-like military alliance with Russia and about 2,500 Russian troops stationed on its territory, Armenia is finding it impossible to draw Russia onto its side unless Azerbaijan attacks Armenia proper. Russia has so far confined itself to calling for a cease-fire along with the United States and France, all three of which make up the largely toothless Minsk Group that has been charged with regulating the conflict for almost 30 years.

Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

A man walks by an apartment building damaged by Azeri shelling in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, Oct. 7, 2020. Russia is an arms supplier to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, though Azerbaijan has supplemented its materiel with Turkish and Israeli weaponry.

Russian experts say that Moscow is faced with a tough dilemma. Attempting to strong-arm Azerbaijan into a cease-fire that maintains Armenian territorial advantages, as in the past, risks losing Baku to Turkish influence forever. Taking Armenia’s side could tip the odds on the battlefield, but might lead to a disastrous regional war between Russia and Turkey. At the least, it would wreck the complicated relationship that Vladimir Putin has developed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which has delivered a lot of geopolitical benefits and profitable economic deals to Russia.

“The damage to the old status quo is already beyond repair,” says Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, which is affiliated with the Foreign Ministry. “It has changed to the detriment of Russia, and it calls for a rethinking of how Russia interacts with these former Soviet countries. It may also be necessary to find a new understanding with Turkey.”

This is the third regional conflict in which Russia and Turkey find themselves supporting opposite sides, after Syria and Libya. Somehow, Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan have found it possible to manage their contradictions, while pursuing their own contrary national interests.

“Ever since Russia and Turkey clashed in Syria five years ago, commentators have been predicting that they will drastically fall out,” says Mr. Kortunov. “Now the balance is more unstable than ever. But do not underestimate the things that drive them to cooperate. Open confrontation would be catastrophic for them both. On the positive side, they have a similar view of the world, their attitudes toward the West coincide, they’ve developed significant economic ties, and at least so far, have found ways to manage their rivalry in Syria, and to a certain extent in Libya. If Russia can accept Turkey as a player in a region it formerly had to itself, the South Caucasus, there is every reason to hope this complex mix of cooperation and competition can work there too.”

A bitter conflict

There are no fresh polls that show Russian public attitudes toward the current fighting. But the last time near-war broke out, in 2016, polls showed Russians largely indifferent, with a substantial minority supporting Armenia and somewhat smaller numbers sympathetic to Azerbaijan. That reflects the large diasporas of both ethnic groups in Russia: about 3 million Armenians and 2 million Azeris.

The enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which now calls itself the Republic of Artsakh, is a hotly contested territory that’s claimed by both Armenians and Azeris as a cradle of their national cultures. Armenians are an ancient Christian civilization that has left its imprint on the wider region, though the once huge Armenian population in present-day Turkey was mostly exterminated in a brutal genocide conducted by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. Azeris are an ethnically Turkic people, whose language is close to Turkish, but who are mostly Shiite Muslims, reflecting their long historical immersion in the former Persian Empire. Armenia is a burgeoning democracy, while Azerbaijan is ruled by a post-Soviet dynastic autocracy.

For Azeris, who outnumber Armenians 3-to-1, the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other regions to Armenia in the 1988-94 war was a national humiliation, which also led to an influx of nearly a million refugees from Armenian-occupied zones. Those refugees still live in forlorn camps, some within sight of their former villages, and remain a burning issue that the government keeps alive. In conversation with the Monitor and other journalists several years ago, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev explained in highly relevant detail how he intended to bide his time and apply the country’s oil wealth to build up its armed forces, until the moment was ripe to recover those lost territories. “The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is not a subject for negotiation,” he said at the time.

Ilgar Velizade, a Baku-based political expert, says that time has arrived.

“Our mobilization resources are vastly greater than Armenia’s,” he says. “We’re a rich country, with gas and oil, and we can even produce our own weapons as well as purchase them abroad. Armenia is totally dependent on Russia. Unfortunately, things are unlikely to take a peaceful turn in the near future, because the Armenians are resisting and refusing to give up the lands they took. As long as there are any Armenian forces on Azerbaijani soil, the war will go on.”

Mr. Velizade expresses satisfaction with Russia’s hands-off approach. “Russia is preserving its position as an effective moderator by refraining from any anti-Azeri or anti-Armenian statements,” he says. “If there is to be a diplomatic solution to this situation, it must be found according to principles that have long been affirmed by the UN and the Minsk Group which require Armenia to withdraw from the territories it occupies and then allow the status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be decided by the joint will of the Armenian and Azeri people.”

“Russia needs to make a clear choice”

The mood in Armenia is quite different. Although its forces are reportedly exacting a high price on the advancing Azeris, they are taking heavy losses from Turkish- and Israeli-built drones and other sophisticated weaponry that’s been provided to Azerbaijan in recent years.

“Azerbaijan chose a moment when all other countries were occupied with their own problems, and nobody cares about the South Caucasus,” says Alexander Iskandaryan, head of the independent Caucasus Institute in Yerevan. “In Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia’s attitude causes a negative emotional response. We can understand the Russians, in light of new realities. They need both Armenia and Azerbaijan for their own reasons. So, Russia’s choice is not to make a choice. But as a result, Russia’s image is suffering, and it could end up losing one or both” of its South Caucasus clients.

Time may be running out for Moscow’s fence-sitting approach, if only for practical reasons. After two weeks of intense fighting, both sides are going to need a resupply of weapons, spare parts, and ammunition for their Russian-made arms. For Armenia, which is entirely dependent on Russian weapons, it’s soon likely to become critical.

“Russia is going to need to make a clear choice. Who will it throw its support behind?” says Alexander Golts, an independent Russian security expert. “Whatever it decides to do is a potential catastrophe for Russia’s role in the South Caucasus.”

Courtesy of Razetti Somos Todos

Dr. Mariela Paliche, a member of El Razetti Somos Todos, an organization gathering and delivering personal protective equipment to doctors in Venezuelan hospitals, goes through donated goods in Barcelona, Venezuela.

Dr. Oscar Navas knew from the start of COVID-19 that if he wanted protective gear at work, he’d have to come up with a solution himself.

That’s because he works in Venezuela, where shortages of medical supplies and basic food products have long been the norm. Amid yearslong political and economic crises, he’s accustomed to working in a hospital where the water and power go out regularly, and where patients often have to bring their own medical supplies for surgeries.

But amid the coronavirus, Dr. Navas says working in a Venezuelan hospital is like “going to war naked.” 

That’s why he and other doctors across Venezuela created a grassroots support network in July to try and bridge the ever-growing gap between helping patients and making sure they have the gear to safely do so. Over the past three months, the effort to raise funds for personal protective equipment for medical professionals has spread to all 23 states as well as the capital, Caracas. In Dr. Navas’ northeastern coastal city of Barcelona, donations arrived from local communities. Neighbors pooled resources to help the doctors who treated them or their loved ones. Others have contributed from farther afield, like doctors who fled Venezuela in recent years, raising money in their new host countries.

For many, the project is a way of pushing back against a government that continues to report extremely low infection rates and is accused of cracking down on medical professionals who try to speak out about the realities on the ground.

“We’ve seen massive solidarity,” Dr. Navas says. “People always talk about Venezuela, how it’s collapsing, and they’re right. But the crisis has also shown the strength of people’s hearts.”

High costs

Shortages of COVID-19 safety gear have been common across the globe, but the situation in Venezuela is more complex than a challenge of simple supply and demand.

More than 5 million people have fled the Andean nation in recent years. The petro-economy is in tailspin, with poverty and desperation exacerbated by hyperinflation and food shortages. There are political crackdowns on opposition voices and periodic clashes with a parallel Venezuelan government led by Juan Guaidó, which is recognized by the United States and at least 50 other nations. Among the millions who have left are doctors, nurses, and medical students, resulting in sparsely-staffed hospitals and clinics.

Courtesy of Razetti Somos Todos

Doctors Carmen Grisanti (left) and Ricnia Vizcaino (right) go through a pile of personal protective equipment donated by neighbors and colleagues outside the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in their hospital in Barcelona, Venezuela.

“Things have become more critical,” says Jaime Lorenzo, executive director of United Doctors of Venezuela, a multinational coalition trying to tackle the yearslong health care crisis. He’s helped lead a separate national push to gather and deliver personal protective equipment to medical professionals, dubbed “Protect them from Covid-19.” The initiative works to amplify the voices of doctors and nurses, track deaths of medical professionals, and create a pathway for the delivery of local and international donations.

COVID-19 has only intensified the risks of practicing medicine in Venezuela, Dr. Lorenzo says. Some doctors or nurses have reused masks or used homemade ones that may not meet standards. Others, like him, buy their own gear from contacts they trust, online shops, or pharmacies.

But most in Venezuela can’t afford it. Doctors in public hospitals make $12 to $14 a month, while nurses make $8 to $10 a month, according to Dr. Lorenzo and professionals interviewed for this story.

A single N95 mask costs about $4.

“People laugh because they think [these are] hourly” wages, says Dr. Lorenzo, who has more than 30 years of experience. “No, this is our monthly salary.”

“Raising our voices”

The Hospital Universitario Doctor Luís Razetti, where Dr. Navas works, is the main COVID-19 treatment center in the state of Anzoátegui. There’s no running water today, he says by telephone, and when donations lag, medical teams have taken to rationing products like disinfectant.

President Nicolás Maduro’s government has reported around 80,000 cases and 658 deaths – likely a severe undercount, watchdogs say. Neighboring Colombia, which emerged from nearly six months of quarantine in September, has reported 870,000 cases and more than 27,000 deaths. A lack of testing, combined with a state campaign that denounces people who may have come into contact with the virus as “bioterrorists,” keeps many Venezuelans from seeking help, critics say.

Some 13 of Dr. Navas’ colleagues have died over the past six months. As of Oct. 5, at least 213 medical workers have died from the coronavirus across Venezuela, making up one-third of the total deaths reported, says Dr. Lorenzo, whose organization is trying to track deaths.

Courtesy of Razetti Somos Todos

Doctors working in Hospital Universitario Doctor Luis Razetti's COVID-19 ward pose for a photo with a recovered patient in Barcelona, Venezuela. The country's pandemic response has been hampered by years of medical shortages.

Over the summer, when Dr. Navas says his hospital was overwhelmed, he put out a call to his broader community for help.

Carlos Santoyo answered.

Mr. Santoyo and his parents fell ill in late July. He and his mother recovered, but his father died two weeks later.

“I thought I was living through a horror movie,” Mr. Santoyo says.

When Dr. Navas rang asking for Mr. Santoyo’s help in organizing donations, he saw it as a chance to give meaning to his father’s death.

“Despite all the pain that comes with losing a loved one in the way I lost my father, I said, ‘Well, someone has to do something in this country. … People are dying because they don’t have enough money’” to buy even the basics, Mr. Santoyo recalls.

Mr. Santoyo began making phone calls to neighbors and friends. By mid-September their team of five informal fundraisers quickly quadrupled as donations began rolling in.

People give what they can. He says those who have had family members with COVID-19 have pooled resources to purchase equipment at sky-high prices in pharmacies or on the black market. Restaurants are donating meals for medical professionals working long hours, and pharmacies have contributed boxes of masks and basic medicine.

Many, fearful of potential backlash from the government, donate anonymously.

In the span of three weeks in September, the initiative delivered over 3,000 face masks, 2,000 meals, gallons of sanitizing alcohol, hand disinfectant and soap, and boxes of gloves.

“Instead of quitting, instead of sitting with our hands tied, we dedicated ourselves to raising our voices,” Dr. Navas says. “What we’re doing is deciding to keep going, and deciding to search for personal protection equipment that we need to care for our people through less conventional means.”

It’s time-consuming, tedious – and lifesaving. But there’s a need for more sustainable solutions, says Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting deputy Americas director for Human Rights Watch.

“These campaigns are super important, but they won’t solve the problem,” she says. “What you really need is a massive humanitarian response,” something the Maduro government has largely blocked in recent years.

Dr. Navas agrees, but he’s trying to focus on the positive.

“I’m always scared we’re going to run out of [donated safety] kits. But what’s greater than my fear is my faith,” he says.

“I’m hopeful they won’t run out because I know that our people will keep helping us.”

Michelle Melanson only has a minute to talk. It’s Saturday, the sun is warm, and the leaves are just showing their fall colors – a recipe for a packed day at Brooksby Farm in Peabody.

“It has been an extremely busy season,” says Ms. Melanson, the farm’s store manager, her voice rising on the phone over the din of customers. Today, the lines for pick-your-own apples and pumpkins are particularly long.

And particularly clean. Everyone gets a squirt of hand sanitizer or uses the makeshift hand-washing station. Masks stay on inside and in line, though some visitors pull them off in the orchard, despite “masks are required” signs. It’s autumn in the heart of New England – and the time of the coronavirus – and business is booming.

With Halloween around the corner and other businesses struggling through an economic downturn, orchards are hustling through peak season. Pick-your-own apples and pumpkins, with all the trimmings – cider donuts, hayrides, and corn mazes – are a draw for cooped-up families looking for safe outdoor activities. And farmers, resilient to seasonal shifts, are well-equipped to handle crowds of eager visitors.

“It’s been a fabulous year in terms of turnout,” says Ben Clark, owner of Clarkdale Fruit Farms in Deerfield. “People really want to be outside doing something with the family that’s safe and socially distanced. ... People are really looking for some normalcy.”

Mr. Clark is also president of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers Association. As farmers, “we were prepared just like we’d be prepared for a storm,” he says. 

New England is fertile ground for smaller orchards that offer agritourism activities, a different breed from the huge commercial fruit operations mostly found in Washington state. But even outside New England, small orchards are seeing an uptick in business. “We’re absolutely hearing that from around the country,” says Jim Bair, president of USApple, an industry organization.

“Even in a normal year, family outings to pick apples is a time-honored tradition. And this year, I think people are tired of looking at the same four walls,” he says.

At Brooksby Farm, Elizabeth Kotoulis and Rachel Smith wander among the apple trees, enjoying a reprieve from Boston, where they both live.

“I think it’s such a strange time, that I still feel guilty doing these kinds of things,” says Ms. Smith. “But you also kind of have to, for your mental health.”

Jules Struck/The Christian Science Monitor

Shoppers peruse the Brooksby Farm pumpkin patch in Peabody, Massachusetts, Oct. 3, 2020. Nearby, a line of 30 people waits to enter the farm store. Some pick-your-own farms have had to cancel typical fall events such as Halloween haunted houses, but many are seeing an uptick in visitors.

“This is like the least bad thing you could do right now,” Ms. Kotoulis says. The nearest group of visitors inspects a tree several yards away.

“It’s nice to hear other people talking and having that conversation that a lot of people were lacking in the first three months [of the pandemic],” Ms. Smith agrees. “I’m just going to enjoy the day, make some caramel apples.”

The pair’s stroll was well-orchestrated by the farm, with all the usual sanitization protocols and only a certain number of people allowed in the orchard at one time.

Some farms, like Tangerini’s Spring Street Farm in Millis, Massachusetts, are asking visitors to reserve a day and time for hay-bale rides or apple picking to control crowds. They’ve also made their produce available for curbside pickup and home delivery.

“Thank goodness for our laminator,” says Linda Chiarizio, who owns Tangerini’s with her husband, Steve, and has put up a lot of signs in the last few months instructing visitors how to safely move around her farm. Near The Farmer’s Porch, their restaurant, where people dine in the open air, the Chiarizios have parked an old flatbed army truck – a makeshift stage for live music at a distance.

Some Halloween festivals are nixed, however. Connors Farm in Danvers, Massachusetts, is skipping Hysteria, its haunted farm and flashlight maze event. And large events in general, like weddings and birthday parties, are off the table.

But farmers have made the best of a tricky season. That’s business as usual, says Mr. Clark. “Farmers by nature are resilient because we have to be,” he says. “Many farms ... have survived for generations because they’ve adapted to change and diversified their operations.”

After staying on top of coronavirus regulations, and weeks of pleasant weather, Tangerini’s Farm is moving on to pumpkins and hayrides after its apple orchard was “PICKED OVER!” as its website declares, in red.

“Usually by the first weekend in October or at least Columbus Day weekend, we usually don’t have any more apples left,” says Ms. Chiarizio. “But we got picked over in the middle of September, which was wild.”

AP

Residents in the Tigray region of Ethiopia cast their votes in a local election that defies the wishes of the federal government.

The world’s most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize, will be announced Oct. 9 amid a time of pandemic, worsening climate change, and democratic decline. In making its selection, the Norwegian Nobel Committee will no doubt look back at the record of the prize’s last recipient, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

He was chosen for making peace with Eritrea and for his democratic reforms. Yet 2020 has been a tough year for Dr. Abiy, especially for someone with a doctorate in conflict resolution who puts harmony between people at the center of his work.

Since assuming power in 2018 following mass protests, his efforts to bring openness and equality to Ethiopia have unleashed ethnic and separatist violence in one of the world’s youngest, poorest, and most diverse countries. To many, his crackdown against the violence has not always been peaceful. He’s also had to deal with a locust invasion, a pandemic-hit economy, and mass floods. Yet despite all this, Dr. Abiy said last month that his goal of an inclusive democracy remains inevitable. “We have no illusion that this would be a smooth ride,” Dr. Abiy told the United Nations General Assembly.

His ability to think of harmony as an assured norm is best seen in his current outreach to the Tigray people. That minority’s regional government is attempting to defy central authorities and perhaps even seek independence. Negotiations have been difficult. But as Dr. Abiy told local Fana TV: “The government scrutinizes each and every action from perspectives of the interests of the people of Tigray. ... The people of Tigray are our people. We dare not to take measures that will hurt them.”

Listening to one’s opponents with compassion has been a common trait among many peace prize laureates as well as winners of similar prizes. Such qualities of character spring from an inner harmony based on humility. One of Dr. Abiy’s favorite phrases is “love always wins.” He says people of different faiths and ethnicities in his country must be able to see themselves as Ethiopians. “We can love what we are without hating who we are not,” he wrote.

Harmony was also the theme in a talk by this year’s recipient of the Templeton Prize. Now in its 50th year, this award is given for insights on humankind’s purpose. It has gone to figures such as Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.

The 2020 winner, Francis Collins, a geneticist and physician who is director of the National Institutes of Health, told an online audience Sept. 24 that today’s main conflicts in the United States – over COVID-19, climate change, and racism – require three solutions to “heal our land.” They are a commitment to truth and reason, a filling of “the growing spiritual void,” and a “return to our calling to love one another.”

Like Ethiopia’s leader, Dr. Collins does not see political polarization as inevitable. He quoted from one of his recent books: “God’s creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful – and it cannot be at war with itself.” If Americans can avoid a tendency to focus on conflict and instead “reach out beyond our own tribes,” there is an opportunity for harmony. “Blessed are the depolarizers,” he summed up, “for harmony can show us a better way.”

That idea has long been the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize. Its recipients are acknowledged for the harmony they have achieved. But they must also be known for the harmony they have discovered within.