Don’t blame the messenger, but I have some bad news: the COVID-19 pandemic is getting worse, not better. Even as states across the country continue to move forward with reopening their economies, we could be headed toward 100,000 new cases per day if we do not act fast and change course.
As someone who herself contracted and recovered from COVID-19, I assure you the precautions public health experts are urging us to take are not exaggerated, or dramatic. They are absolutely necessary.
But it’s still incredibly frustrating — because Americans have done their part. We’ve stayed home, we’ve sacrificed, and millions of workers in essential jobs have risked their health to keep us safe.
It’s our politicians who have failed us.
Because of their failure of leadership, we will have to continue sacrificing for even longer, even while other countries around the world get to resume something like normal lives.
They failed us by declaring victory long before the fight was over, relaxing guidelines and reopening economies far too soon. Here in Georgia, Governor Kemp reopened the state recklessly early, and now we’re paying the price, with more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases each day and rising.
It’s not just our governors who have failed us. The Trump Administration has failed essential workers, and Congress’ relief packages have failed to meet the incredible need out there.
But, finally, I also have some good news: it’s not too late to provide essential workers with the long-overdue relief and protections they should have had since the onset of this pandemic.
The House of Representatives has already passed the HEROES Act, a desperately-needed federal relief bill that would provide premium pay to a broad group of essential workers, and expand access to emergency paid sick days and paid family leave for the many who were left out in previous relief efforts. It also includes direct financial relief to families, child care support, an extension of unemployment insurance, and $3.6 billion for state and local governments to make election systems safe for voters and poll workers under COVID-19.
Yet Mitch McConnell and Republican Senators have so far cruelly refused to pass the HEROES Act — or even allow it to be brought up for a vote. That’s why we need to make our voices heard and demand that Senate Republicans – particularly Georgia’s Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — pass the HEROES Act now.
As a state Senator in Georgia, and someone who fights for 2.5 million workers who are mostly women of color and immigrants through the National Domestic Workers Alliance, I am all too aware of who is being hurt the most by the Senate’s failure to fight for the people of this country.
Because we live in a country with widespread and deep-rooted racial and gender inequality, COVID-19 has hit Black and Brown women the hardest — and especially the domestic workers who were among the first to lose their income.
As people across the country are rising up to say that Black Lives Matter, our government’s response to the pandemic says otherwise. Let’s be clear, the virus is disproportionately killing Black people.
Black people already faced racial bias in health care before the pandemic, and now those disparate outcomes have only been magnified. The pandemic is leaving many families to make impossible choices around putting food on the table, paying utilities and rent, staying home due to lack of childcare, or risking their lives and their families’ health to keep their jobs.
The CARES Act helped, but it is not enough when so many families, especially immigrant families, were left out of the protections because they work in the informal economy.
The HEROES Act must be passed immediately. 138,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19, and many thousands more lives are still on the line. We are in a state of emergency, and things are about to get worse if the Senate doesn’t act.
The people of this country are doing the right thing, and it is time our government supports us, instead of making it harder. It is long past time that elected officials bail out the working people of this country, instead of the corporations, so we can begin to flatten our skyrocketing curve.
We need relief now. Lives depend on it. This is a public health crisis, not a partisan power play.
So let’s demand Senate Republicans DO THEIR JOBS and pass the HEROES Act now.
Millions of essential workers are doing their jobs to keep the country moving. It’s time for Senators to do theirs.
Nikema Williams represents District 39 in the Georgia State Senate. She also serves as Deputy Director of Civic Engagement at National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Deputy Executive Director at Care in Action.
