Once the worst of the pandemic is over and it is considered safe to travel, there will be a tremendous backlog of people applying for passports and renewals. This will hurt the travel industry even more than it is hurting right now, not only here, but all over the world. Also, many people have to travel on business. Many of them can't work remotely.

This is important because the mayor allows and even encourages the doe to be run by mountebanks and grifters who have corrupted public education under the guise of learning and caring, all while destabilizing, demeaning and damaging the children and the workforce of the NYC public school system.

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

We’re all going to die or suffer terribly without it.

Health care and other essential service workers have become sick and some may die over the lack of preparedness, even though these masks were changing hands and flying back and forth between countries since January of 2020

This week, Politico reported that there is “contentious debate” over whether or not companies should be allowed to use taxpayer money from the relief funds to lobby Congress. This is utterly absurd. Any companies receiving federal relief money must be banned from using it to lobby Congress. The lack of a strict ban on using relief funds to lobby Congress was a gaping hole in the original stimulus. Congress must act urgently to close this loophole. Source: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2020/04/01/corporate-america-might-need-more-money-from-congress-786576

Tens of thousands, perhaps millions, will die if this petition is not answered positively.

An endorsement of a large group necessitates an election by its members! The American Federation of Teachers  (AFT) supports Joe Biden for president, says spokesperson Randi Weingarten. But, we professional educators were not asked our opinion and we should have been! The undersigned AFT teachers support Bernie Sanders for President and we think the AFT should do the same because Bernie's platform is the best for our students, from the young child through the college-bound student. There is no question or doubt that Bernie's platform for education from the start is superior and calls on us to make the playing field equitable and education attainable for all. Here is why: Bernie's platform for elementary and secondary school education: • Provide equitable funding for public schools • Give teachers a much-deserved raise by setting a starting salary for teachers at no less than $60,000, expanding collective bargaining rights and teacher tenure, and funding out-of-pocket expenses for classroom materials. • Strengthens the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by ensuring that the federal government provides at least 50 percent of the funding for special education and giving special education teachers the support they need. • Provide year-round, free universal school meals, and incentivizes locally sourced food. • Make schools safe and inclusive by protecting the rights of all students from harassment, discrimination, and violence and enacting comprehensive gun violence prevention laws. • Rebuild, modernize, and green our nation’s schools. • Combat racial discrimination and school segregation • End the unaccountable profit-motive of charter schools Bernie's platform for higher education:  • Guarantee tuition and debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions and trade-schools to all. • Cancel all student loan debt for the some 45 million Americans who owe about $1.6 trillion and place a cap on student loan interest rates going forward at 1.88 percent. • Invest $1.3 billion every year in private, non-profit historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions • End equity gaps in higher education attainment. And ensure students are able to cover non-tuition costs of attending school by: expanding Pell Grants to cover non-tuition and fee costs, tripling funding for the Work-Study Program, and more. We do not support the AFT's decision to support Joe Biden without full participation. We, respectfully, request that the AFT support Bernie Sanders because he is the best pro-education candidate in this race for the presidency.

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