It is vital to track how COVID is affecting people differently depending on race in order to address racial disparities now and in the future. The numbers of people who are dying and infected in NY, Milwaukee and Chicago are disproportionately people of color, and Black people in particular. the CDC is not keeping track of race nationally for the pandemic, although it should, because not doing so makes it seem like this is an equal opportunity illness, and it is not. generational and historical wealth and injustice are not abstract moral issues, they are the difference between life and death generational and historical injustice translate into the unequal distribution of resources like hospital beds, trained staff, infrastructure and healthcare facilities, and availability of medications generational and historical injustice affects the quality of living spaces, pre-existing conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses, and the ability to quarantine COVID is not the great equalizer. Viruses may not discriminate, but the ways in which the pandemic is panning out is clearly surfacing the inequalities that we desperately need to address. Tracking race is paramount to understand how racial inequality factors in COVID-related deaths and illnesses.

If lawmakers don’t act quickly, Wisconsin will move ahead with its primary elections this Tuesday -- despite a statewide shelter-in-place order and the growing threat of the COVID-19 crisis. This would potentially suppress hundreds of thousands of voters -- and expose those that do show up at the polls to unnecessary health risks. Wisconsin is the only one of the 11 states originally scheduled to hold contests in April that has not postponed or dramatically altered voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If we let things move forward like this, far too many voters will be disenfranchised or choose to stay home. Already, poll worker shortages have forced many polling places to close (from 180 down to just 5 for the entire city of Milwaukee) -- placing major strains on the locations that plan to remain open. And here’s the appalling part: Republican lawmakers stand accused of dragging their feet on this issue in order to suppress voter turnout -- and help an incumbent right-wing state Supreme Court justice who’s up for re-election. [1] This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Protecting voters’ rights and safety right now should be every party’s top priority. Gov. Tony Evers has just called a special legislative session to fix this -- urging lawmakers to adopt a proposal to expand absentee voting until May 19th... provide every registered voter with a ballot... and create safe in-person voting opportunities for voters with disabilities and others who are unable to vote by mail. But lawmakers will only do the right thing if they feel massive public pressure -- so we urgently need you to add your voice right now. Tell Wisconsin lawmakers to delay in-person voting and make sure every voter can cast their ballot safely. 1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-goes-it-alone-holding-elections-next-week-amid-fears-of-infection-and-voting-chaos/2020/03/31/8bd801ae-735f-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html

Small businesses are the engine of our economy. In many communities small businesses are the largest employer and the lifeblood of the community. We create meaningful jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurs to thrive. By unilaterally requiring that your small business clients have pre-existing lending relationships with Bank of America you are putting up unnecessary roadblocks to saving jobs and saving communities from devastation. Worse, this practice may even be discriminatory, as it may impact black, Latino, Asian, and Native American business owners disproportionately, who are more likely to have been denied access loans due to historic and current red-lining practices and institutional racism. The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to provide forgivable loans to Small Businesses to keep people employed during this time of emergency. In determining clients of Bank of America's eligibility for these lifeline loans, you have instituted an unnecessary pre-existing lending client requirement that is preventing many desperate smaller businesses and nonprofits from even applying for PPP. We all need to come together at times like this, not put up barriers to resources. You have the power to eliminate this arbitrary requirement and we ask you to step in and address this issue with the urgency the present emergency demands.

Like most kinds of porn, inspiration porn is exploitative, unrealistic and harmful for disabled people. Imagery of individuals "overcoming" the disabled body serves only to de-value those of us who cannot for the enjoyment of those who never had to. This is particularly gross given that this imagery is being used to increase shareholder profits for Hyundai, a global corporation that did $91 billion in sales last year. In the time of COVID-19 this also means a very real chance of disabled people being denied life-saving treatment because of the mere perception that their lives are less valuable than a “healthier” person.

Although, it is a great initiative to do distant learning, parents and/or students are not fully equipped, mentally, emotionally to successfully provide or acquire the education that is provided by an official educator. This initiative will also keep the educators and households sane as we survive and readjust because of this pandemic. It will also provide a more realistic grade point average for schools and students not to lose their academic status.

President's Trump's treatment of PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor as she fulfills her professional obligations during a national crisis is unacceptable. Recently, during COVID-19 conferences, he told her, “Be nice. Don’t be threatening,” and called her questions “nasty.” Consider the messages he is sending the world about Black women and girls. Trump has a long history of mistreating people of color, women and the press. His aggressive attitude toward Alcindor is a culmination of these biased, undemocratic and dangerous behaviors. As the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) recently pointed out in a joint statement: “As far back as November 2018, Trump leveled verbal abuse at Alcindor along with fellow Black women journalists Abby Phillip of CNN and April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks… Both groups have noted the president’s pattern of using demeaning language toward women journalists of color and other journalists.” Sources: NABJ and JAWS statement: https://jaws.org/2020/03/31/jaws-and-nabj-stand-against-unacceptable-treatment-of-yamiche-alcindor/ Examples of Trump’s racism: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_n_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83 Trump attacks the press: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html Women who accuse Trump of sexual assault: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-running-list-of-the-women-whove-accused-donald-trump-of-sexual-misconduct_n_57ffae1fe4b0162c043a7212

No one needs to be in ICE detention as they await their case to work through the courts. Forcing people to remain there during the coronavirus pandemic is cruel and inhumane. Along with ICE’s already horrific record of medical neglect and denying basic necessities for maintaining health and sanitation, people locked up in immigration detention are extremely vulnerable to the spread of infectious disease because they are unable to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves like social distancing and sanitizing regularly. There have already been 10 reported deaths in ICE custody in the last six months alone, and multiple ICE officers and people detained have tested positive for COVID-19. Acting Director of ICE Matthew Albence must act now, before it is too late and the virus spreads like wildfire through detention centers. The answer is clear: release people now.

Every single human being is stressed now with everything that has evolved as a direct result of this crisis. Pharmaceutical drugs have proven to wreak havoc around the world causing many deaths. while cannabis is a safer alternative for many and has never killed anyone. Re-legalize cannabis NOW, it is the only humane thing to do at this point.

Las Vegas has approximately 150,000 hotels with a homeless population of approximately 5,286, as reported by their survey in 2019. There is more than enough room among those hotels to house those who are suffering from homelessness. These people being forced to stay in the streets and in parking lots are human beings. They deserve to have a safe place to stay at all times, but especially in the middle of a global pandemic. Show Las Vegas and the rest of the country that this treatment of those suffering is unacceptable. Demand they open up their hotels for those without homes.

IT BREAKS MY HEART TO HEAR SOMEONE BEG FOR FOOD CHILDREN ARE STARVING & I JUST CAN'T SIT BACK AND DO NOTHING

Banning of Partners/Significant Others/Family Members/Visitors in Hospital Labor and Delivery Units in the Tri-State Area Protect our mothers and our newborns. Protect our front-line healthcare workers, doctors and nurses. Ban all visitors now! 784, 716 infected worldwide, 163,807 cases in the United States, 67,384 confirmed in New York and 16,636 confirmed in New Jersey, 37,639 fatalities worldwide - we need to flatten the curve now! This past week, New Jersey ordered its citizens to stay home and closed all non-essential businesses in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. New York has mandated the policy of “stay home, stop the spread, save lives.” But our nurses and doctors face that spread every day, and we must do what we can to protect them. New Jersey and New York must prohibit visitors, including partners and family members, on all maternity units in the state. According to CNN, half of infections originate in pre-symptomatic carriers – every person allowed into a hospital increases the risk of spreading COVID-19 to patients and newborns as well as the medical staff caring for them. Two of New York’s largest hospital systems, New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System, had barred all visitors from their maternity wards. This ruling was recently reversed. Inconsistent policies are creating confusion in the public, causing people to “hospital shop,” even crossing state lines to deliver their babies with partners present. With the influx of out-of-state patients, New Jersey and New York obstetrics doctors and nurses are faced with unfamiliar patients with unknown medical history. During this COVID-19 pandemic, Labor and Delivery wards’ primary focus must be on the safety of the mother, newborn baby, and staff. As nurses, we understand the pain a partner feels missing the birth of their child, but that pain doesn’t compare to the risk posed to our patients and our medical staff. Having a partner absent at birth creates a more stressful delivery for mothers and staff alike, but it is necessary. Every person in America is making sacrifices in social distancing in order to ensure the future safety and health of our nation. As health care providers, we are at the front line ensuring this safety. Doctors and nurses are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and must be quarantined if exposed. Therefore we demand that our health and safety, as well as the health and safety of our patients, is taken into consideration. Until testing is available for everyone, we must reduce this risk as much as possible; banning partners in labor and delivery will flatten the curve and save lives. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html Please refer to this hyperlink to show how many people have been infected with unknown origin, how the death toll has risen and how the increase in contact per patient per partner would thus increase exposure risk to all of the people involved. How many people are asymptomatic infected people? Spreading the disease? The USA death total has doubled since Thursday, surpassing 2,500, with NY 1,218 deaths - an increase of 965 since Sunday morning. *Actual numbers provided in opening of petition are from the John Hopkins University Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering as of 22:30 on March 30, 2020. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

On March 30, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, 58-year-old Juan Mosquero died in isolation after exhibiting serious COVID-19-related symptoms. Across the country families are under extreme stress over the fate of incarcerated loved ones, including Cassandra in Virginia, who says, “My husband is currently incarcerated here in a Virginia prison. He currently has health concerns that worry me. Making him subcetable and at higher risk of the Corona virus [sic].” We are in a crisis on multiple fronts right now, and one such crisis at a breaking point with COVID-19 is our mass incarceration rate — the highest in the world — and crowded detention facilities in which we have totally inadequate health protections. This is no small crisis. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. On any given day, 600,000 people are held pretrial in jails mostly because they don’t have enough money to be home with their families. Moreover, 38,000 people are currently being held in ICE detention centers. The spread of COVID-19 is a national emergency that threatens potentially millions of lives. While everyone is at risk, we have a moral obligation to ensure that our most vulnerable—the elderly, the sick, those without medical care, and those unable to protect themselves from the virus—get the help that they need. Tell your governor to take action now!