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

Just like several people, my fiancé received an awful sentence that does not match his crime at all. These inmates can’t even be there for their families when they are sick and some of them are dying. At this time with a pandemic, we need him home and want to make sure he is safe. We are all worried about him, and his four children are worried sick. Ryan Michael Ricks DOC#117070 in CSP is a non-violent offender for this charge and should not even be in this prison. But one of the nation's leading prison experts as well as family members of inmates are calling on the government and prison officials to do more to protect those inside, including allowing inmates to use hand sanitizer and bleach for cleaning and eliminating fees for soap and doctor's visits. "The risks of this disease are incredibly huge. It's going to spread like wildfire," said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. We are asking that non-violent offender’s, no matter what prison they are in, should be released to their families. Use a GPS system or whatever else we can do to get these inmates home. There is not enough protective gear for staff, inmates, and Guards to wear. We don’t even have enough protective equipment for the hospitals. Please don’t put a death sentence on these inmates when their families need them. Social distancing is also an executive order from President Trump as well!

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!

According to data collected by John Hopkins University and reported by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, this weekend Missouri led the country with a 600% increase in the number of cases reported. As of Sunday at 3:00 p.m. according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, there were 903 Cases of COVID-19, including 12 deaths. As faith leaders we are concerned about the most vulnerable Missourians who were at risk long before COVID-19 became a part of our lexicon. These neighbors include the under and uninsured including 83,000 uninsured children, our unhoused siblings, financially insecure, immune compromised, poor, disabled, incarcerated and immigrant Missourians. The U.S. Census reported that the number of uninsured Missourians grew in 2018 to approximately 564,000 with close to 100,000 children being uninsured. As you are aware, Missouri legislators have refused to expand Medicaid putting more Missourians at risk. The rapid spread of COVID-19, the inaccessibility of testing to all Missourians and the lack of treatment available forces uninsured and low income Missourians to be at risk for needing life-saving health care they cannot afford or premature death. These conditions overlay one health crisis on top of another. Next week marks the beginning of “Holy Week.” Christians across the world and in Missouri will observe Good Friday. In the words of Rev. Dr. Robert Hill, “Easter weekend should not lead to additional crucifixions, one Good Friday is enough.” That week also is the beginning of Passover, Rabbi Doug Alpert reminds us, “There is no greater value in Judaism than Pekuach Nefesh-the sanctity of human life.” Help us to preserve human life and decrease the opportunity for additional deaths. We are concerned that many of our neighbors, congregants and even family members will not be passed over by COVID-19 because you have refused to issue a clear order to shelter in place. Across the state some local mayors and county officials have rightfully issued shelter in place orders but the lack of a statewide shelter in place order has caused confusion and given some the erroneous implication that this pandemic is not dangerous. We need clear leadership from the highest office in the state to ensure that faith communities and families don’t misinterpret the lack of a shelter in place order for the state of Missouri, as a license to proceed with worship and other gatherings during these highly regarded religious holidays. This would lead to more illness and death. In doing so people of faith across Missouri could proclaim our faith and hope as people using all of our God-given resources to enhance life and a shared and fruitful future.

We are urging Governor Andrew Cuomo to develop a comprehensive plan and make available funds for virtual programs including tele-counseling, virtual art programs, that will support children mental health and well-being. Investing funds into community-based organizations who have been supporting our children and families many years before this pandemic is crucial to ensuring our children are holistically safe. Virtual support such as this will provide a healthy and much needed outlet for our children to interact and receive crucial services while practicing social distancing. Our children are our priority. We are asking you to sign our petition to make sure all New York State children well-being is supported. We are in this together.

1. This petition seeks to prevent further COVID-19 spread in detention camps. The health of every individual in the United States of America is important and must be protected. Immigrants in detention are kept in close quarters, which does not allow for social distancing. 2. Confirmed COVID-19 cases in detention often are responded to with solitary confinement. This has been proven to have detrimental mental and physical health consequences. 3. Several cases of COVID-19 have already been found in immigrant detention centers. 4. Immigrant detention centers have well-documented issues with providing adequate medical care. Refer to Human Rights Watch and Detention Watch Network reports on the lack of medical care and deaths in detention. 5. Immigrant detention centers are closing off their facilities to visitation because of the pandemic. This further isolates the individuals, families, and children. 6. Community and governmental responses are needed not just to release folks from detention, but to ensure that they have access to safe housing, adequate healthcare, and access to meeting their basic needs. Not everyone has family or friends with whom they can go live with, particularly during this pandemic that requires social distancing. 7. They must be released.

Because of the covic-19 virus that is deadly. The Arizona Department of Corrections prison is not equipped to handle this covic-19 virus, it is putting these people in a unhealthy and unclean environment.Workers and prisoners a like. The extreme measures that are being ask of people around the World to follow 6 feet distance, and no more than 10 gatherings to avoid the spread of the covic-19 virus. Inmates and those who work there are in such a dire situation. That needs to be ruminate by officials in authority with the power in their hands to perform this much needed task.

Every day, Drs, nurses, assistive personnel, dietary staff, environmental service staff, grocery store employees and others are being put on the frontline, many without the proper protection. This, not only risking their own wellbeing, but also their families, and those they come into contact with. According to the Department of Labor, this warrants hazardous pay. https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/hazardpay Demand what we are due!

Recently, the Health Care Authority has temporarily allowed interpreters who cover Medicaid interpreting appointments to work from home while being compensated at their current rate of pay during this COVID-19 situation. On the other hand, L&I has chosen to require medical and vocational providers to only use pre-approved vendors in the Department of Enterprise Services (DES) contract when needing interpreters over the phone. This includes companies like Language Link, and Lionbridge. This is causing extreme hardship to independent interpreters who cover face to face L&I appointments, being obligated to remain at home without any means to support their families. If the HCA was able to quickly find a solution for their interpreters, why can't Labor & industries? As this COVID-19 situation develops, we need to do whatever it takes to help our economy. Please join us and ask the Department of Labor and Industries to do what's right for the majority of workers which are independent interpreters, not just a few companies. While we are at home and staying healthy, we shouldn't be worried that L&I will give our jobs to out of state companies.

Lives are at stake.

I have student loans and a car loan with Nissan Financial and I was told they will push back my auto loan but add on extra interests. I think if we are out of work for a month or two instead of charging extra interest and pushing out our loan out several months that those months be counted as paid and we are given time to settle our lives after everything gets back to normal.

To 10th Floor Brokers, We represent a coalition of your current tenants and allies. We are writing this in light of the current COVID pandemic and how it has impacted all of our daily lives. We are politely requesting that in these uncertain times that rent payments for the month of April be cancelled, as the livelihoods of your tenants, our friends, family, and neighbors, are in flux. With this request, we also ask that payment notices, late fees, or other pressure to pay cease immediately. All of your tenants are doing their best to make it through this difficult time and are staying home to keep all of us safe. Our ability to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our community should not be put in peril due to job loss caused by this crisis. We want to work with you as partners to ensure safe and secure housing for all of our neighbors. To that end, drastic and widespread changes will be needed to your maintenance schedules. Several buildings you manage have long-standing issues of pests, mold, electrical issues, leaky pipes, flooded basements, and the like. We collectively require that all issues and all buildings be fixed - issues within common areas to be fixed immediately, and issues within individual units to be fixed once the State’s “Stay at Home” order is lifted. We also request that any time you plan to enter a unit that you provide 24 hours notice and get confirmation prior to entering the unit. Beyond the scope of us as renters, this is also a general protest. We invite you to stand with us. If your bills are not able to be paid because of quarantine, we invite you to protest those bills as well. We believe systemic change is needed and this is one path for all of us to reach for that. Stand with us in our stand for healthcare for every person in America. It is needed now more than ever. Just as lives will be ruined by landlords who try to harass and evict during a pandemic, lives will also be ruined by crushing medical debt brought on by a widespread illness. Thank you for considering these items. God bless.