Healthcare staff have the highest exposure rate to COVID-19, but in many states they are not being tested for the virus until they are symptomatic. By that point, they have already exposed countless people to the virus. Additionally, without regular testing, healthcare staff face a constant state of uncertainty about whether they remain virus-free with no real way to alleviate that fear unless they begin showing symptoms. Our healthcare staff (including everyone who works at the hospital, not just the doctors/nurses/therapists) is on the front lines fighting this pandemic for our country every day and they should be prioritized for testing. Public health officials, like those at the World Health Organization, have increasingly warned that health care workers themselves could be vectors for the disease — accelerating its spread and undermining the ability of countries’ health systems to combat it. The United States government should advise healthcare organizations to prioritize making periodic testing available for healthcare staff who work in facilities or homes where patients have tested positive for coronavirus. After healthcare workers, COVID-19 testing should be prioritized for essential workers and for those who care for immuno-compromised family members.

It is the obligation of every Latino elected official or candidate for office to assume leadership to mobilize to create this special fund, and to prioritize it above all other matters. There are many looking for the well-being of all of us, but not many who take on the responsibility to look after our vulnerable undocumented population. Please take the initiative to move this matter, and include me in your efforts.

All of a sudden, Americans overwhelmingly support the principle of federal payments to the poor and middle class alike to establish a floor below which they cannot sink. Thus, the status pf the middle class is protected, and, in the case of the poor, the necessities of life are assured. Americans are now coming to recognize that the economic straitjacket in which most of them find themselves is not their fault, but rather is the result of a fickle and rapidly changing economy, along with tax policies unfavorable to them. Thus there is no moral issue involved in receiving these payments. In fact, with economic pressure relieved, Americans will be freer to pursue advances in their lives, educationally and vocationally. Nobody is going to live off the fat of the land under this modest stipend. Rather, it will serve as an investment in our country's most precious resource: human capital. And for the poor, this will mean the dismantling of the humiliating welfare bureaucracy, with its rules and regulations that have always smacked of a plantation mentality. Additionally, this reform will help heal the tension between the middle class and the poor, which has always been used by unscrupulous politicians who profit from dividing these two groups that belong on the same page. It will also raise the level of basic consumer demand, which is the chief vehicle on which our economy depends. Additionally it will provide desperately needed permanent relief to state and local governments - which have been devastated financially by the Virus Depression - by abolishing the requirement that they appropriate money for welfare, as under the present system. Building on the latter point, we should seize this opportunity to combine Medicare and Medicaid, so both are financed exclusively by the federal government.This would alleviate the longtime Achilles heal of state finances, Medicaid. Not only will this help fill the immediate financial pit the virus has created for the states, but as a permanent feature will free up more state funds for education and other essential local services. Additionally, the new expanded Medicare will give to the poor the dignity that the program has brought for the last half century to seniors of all income brackets. This proposal does not seek government expansion into any area of medical finance it does not presently control. It simply makes uniform the programs it already runs, both in their coverage and in the source of their funding. With the economy collapsing, the federal government is able to find $2 trillion to shore it up. This means that in more prosperous times, it would surely be able to do so on a continuous basis. Tell former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump to support making the $1200 payments a permanent monthly feature of American life and to combine Medicaid and Medicare.

Over the course of the past few weeks, COVID-19 has impacted countries across the World and disrupted daily life as we know it. Among those who have been impacted most by COVID-19 are healthcare professionals including PAs, NPs, MDs, DOs, RNs and many other healthcare providers. The coronavirus has not only impacted practicing professionals, but also the students who are currently in training to become the future of healthcare. ARC-PA, the accrediting body of physician assistant educational programs, has been far from helpful during this national crisis. PA programs and their students have been struggling to find answers on what to do for clinical education during this time due to students being removed from clinical sites and the lack of guidance from ARC-PA. Since March 10th, ARC-PA has released two vague statements that have provided very little direction on what is acceptable for completing clinical education during this time. Thankfully, ARC-PA has high standards of education for their programs and students, however during this time of crisis ARC-PA needs to make clear temporary exceptions to their standards of clinical education. Specifically, we are asking ARC-PA to clearly state that clinical students may temporarily fully complete clinical rotation requirements in the form of online distance learning rather than in-person clinical experiences. While we understand the importance of in-person clinical experiences, we must look at the practicality of these types of experiences being completed given the current circumstances. Programs will be unable to place students into clinical sites for weeks to months due to students currently being banned from most health care systems across the country. It is irresponsible for ARC-PA to continue to not acknowledge this, which is why it is necessary that temporary exceptions be made. It should be noted that ARC-PA would not be alone in making these types of exceptions as many other accrediting boards, medical associations, and medical schools across the country have been allowing unique exceptions to occur in order to graduate students on time. Now more than ever the United States needs its healthcare heroes, and now more than ever ARC-PA needs to support PAs and PA students. #PAsSaveLives

People are dying! Trump is not doing his job. Someone needs to! Michael Bloomberg is well-positioned and ideally suited (capital, connections, executive skills) to serve the country in this way.

Mutual aid is defined as a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services. There are already several mutual aid efforts underway, both neighborhood-based and citywide. They are decentralized by necessity, and the organizers are conscious and cautious around the need to practice social distancing and follow safety and health protocols as recommended by the CDC. We would invite the city and county to participate in our collective thinking around making mutual aid safe in this time. Durham has precedent for effective, widespread efforts at mutual aid in times of crisis, including recent successful efforts to get emergency supplies to victims of Hurricane Florence in 2018. Durham was an epicenter of the organizing that led to airdropping shipments of supplies to affected areas, making necessities more accessible, and more quickly, than many official sources of support including cities, counties, and the Red Cross. In addition to our request to protect mutual aid efforts, we fully support the recent call to reduce community harm by rejecting policing and carceral responses to this pandemic. We are also heavily conscious of the real danger of the coronavirus to people incarcerated in the Durham County Jail. We therefore demand that everyone who wants to be released from the jail be allowed to do so immediately, and that the County provide appropriate wellness and safety provisions for those who choose to remain. Mutual aid efforts in Durham are not situated to do casework, but are interested in helping to support the release of prisoners through neighborhood-based mutual aid. The spirit of the Community Safety and Wellness Task Force was to create community systems of care. Even in a time of crisis when we’re encouraged to do social distancing, we can have solidarity even beyond the confines of our families and neighborhoods. Please join us in this collective effort at solidarity by recognizing mutual aid and freeing our incarcerated community members in the jail. Signed, Danielle Purifoy, Mab Segrest & Lewis Wallace Petition Signers: Danielle Purifoy Mab Segrest Lewis Raven Wallace Jesa Rae Richards Faith Holsaert Quisha Mallette Giuliana Morales Catherine Edgerton Hideo Higashibaba Billy Dee Devohn Phillips Fern Hickey Maryam Arain Meghan McDowell China Medel Grace Nichols AJ Williams sumi dutta Beau Cromartie Beth Brockman Anne Wells Leilani Dowell Isaac Villegas Maya Washington Jatoia Potts Kelly Creedon Annie Segrest Andrew Meeker Aman Aberra Eli Meyerhoff Allison Swaim Winston Torrance Jake Stanley Sammy Truong Helen Cane Alejandra Mejia Konstantin Bakhurin Sandra Korn Hannah Ball-Damberg Gann Herman Jeremy Purser Alexandra Chass Ellie Pate Anita Simha Vicki Ryder Tracy S. Feldman Latasha Watts Tracie Minor Links: Durham Mutual Aid guide to neighborhood organizing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10VpieQKeJtsz7suGs0PWCHuFq2y-YVn_6VRnWSVeWMY/edit?fbclid=IwAR3nZIx61Eu5Ac0eLOn2BynH9uUio7faFLoy6iOrxOoRPUGe0asKUtLbNbA#heading=h.4l4cdle0d8sa Durham Mutual Aid Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/durhammutualaid/ Proposal for a Community Led Safety and Wellness Task Force: http://durhambeyondpolicing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Durham-Beyond-Policing-Budget-Proposal-2019-2020.pdf Durham Mayor Pro Tem Memo, “Durham Community Safety and Wellness Task Force,’ https://cityordinances.durhamnc.gov/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Documents/ViewDocument/Final-Published%20Attachment%20-%2013824%20-%20MEMO%20-%20MEMO%20-%203_2_2020.pdf?meetingId=369&documentType=Agenda&itemId=15078&publishId=64804&isSection=false This includes: “Task Force Objectives: ● Conduct a comprehensive review of existing institutional and community-based public safety and wellness resources. Identify community safety needs that are not currently being served and provide recommendations for how to add new resources to fill these gaps.” Mutual Aid Coverage: https://www.scalawagmagazine.org/2020/03/covid19-community-aid/ The End Money Bail Act https://www.dataforprogress.org/end-money-bail.

Abortion is a time-sensitive procedure that cannot be delayed without serious consequences. Denying safe abortion access places financial and emotional burdens on patients, their families, and on the health care system. Mississippi is one of the most hostile states for abortion rights and due to their only being one clinic in the state, people already have to wait days, sometimes weeks, and travel long distances to access safe, legal abortion care. Banning abortions in Mississippi does nothing but force people to travel out of the state to access the care they need, and during a pandemic, it increases their risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

The virus spreads too fast; we have many people who are 65 and over here in Florida who are vulnerable as well as it seems to be all age groups. There is lack of social distancing being enforced or mandated. We are not lazy, we are hard working Americans and tax payers. We want to work but we need to survive this first in order to get back to work! All lives matter! Many of us do not have the luxury to run to our summer cottages! It will be another New York or Italy if the governor does not support our requests. Even Collier county doctors are making this request. If too many people die, who will be able to work? Not to mention how many lives and loved ones will be lost.

This is extremely important because we are gambling with people's lives, people who are scheduled to go home at some point, so this is just forcing it to be a lot sooner than anticipated. This pandemic has caused a lot of things to change in our lives and this is one of them. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to sit and think about it; we need to act NOW ..... Letting them go home early OR make them sit there and play Russian roulette with their lives??

President Trump is dangerous to viewers. It's not just that he lies, it's that people believe him. An Arizona man died and his wife is in critical condition after ingesting a substance they thought was the one Trump touted as a cure for the disease. He lies about medical supplies. He lies about the number of sick people. He lies about the uses of social distancing -- and then contradicts himself. Please, do your jobs. Cover the press conferences and then report on them later. We don't need Americans exposed to a steady diet of disinformation. Thank you.

TO BE CLEAR: No decision has been made. The signed believe that this would be the right way to go and want to show support for this direction to Mayor Gilbert. As of March 25, North Carolina has 504 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with the highest number in Wake County, and we just had the first patients die of the disease. Our hospitals are being overwhelmed by patients asking for tests, and they have a lack of the proper equipment--including masks and gloves--to treat those infected by the virus. Cases of coronavirus in Wake County have grown exponentially in a week alone, and we don't have the tests necessary to see the true extent of the pandemic. The situation is so dire that health officials are telling people with mild symptoms to stay home. If left unmitigated, the coronavirus could kill millions of Americans. Epidemiologists agree that the only way to significantly stem the pandemic is to stay home, especially in areas that are experiencing community spread as Wake County is. That is why Wake County has issued the stay-at-home order, but it can only get compliance in Apex if Mayor Gilbert signs on. The order is not a prison sentence--we will still be able to get necessities and exercise outdoors. Rather, it provides businesses and families with the guidance we need to know how to act in these trying times. It's the responsible way to let our health system do its job. Apex is a strong, compassionate community, and we can do the right thing with your leadership, Mayor Gilbert. We want you to know that we have your back. Sign on to the Wake County stay-at-home order now. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241491911.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/the-coronavirus-could-kill-millions-of-americans-cdc-advisor-says.html

Inmates are in very close quarters, visits are being suspended at all State prisons, inmates have relatively inadequate healthcare, and suppliers, like Walmart, are now refusing to deliver food and care packages to inmates. This greatly reduces the ability of family members to care for their incarcerated loved ones on their own. There is a petition circulating asking the Governor to release the elderly, pregnant women, and those with a compromised immune system. We started this petition because we believe that inmates who are there for simple technical violations should be included. A technical violation is when a parolee does not meet a condition of their parole but also DOES NOT commit a crime. These are things like failing to report for a scheduled visit, missing a curfew, or failure to gain employment. Releasing inmates who are locked up for non-criminal technical violations would help reduce the load on valuable resources New York State needs now to fight this pandemic, to protect the wellbeing of inmates who cannot be released and allow these inmates to return home and care for their family members during this trying time. Ohio was the first to release inmates due to COVID-19 concerns and we know you like to lead the way on innovative solutions to challenging modern problems. Please, Governor Cuomo, release parolees who have been incarcerated for technical violations due to COVID-19 concerns.