Op-Ed: New COVID strains are coming. It’s no time to let down our guard.
By Jennifer Knapp
At the beginning of February, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act included a provision to address what is commonly referred to as “COVID-19.” The provision required any facility that houses immigrants to immediately provide health care to all of its employees.
As a new pandemic is rapidly emerging, this is a major step in the right direction and will hopefully not return to the same old problems as last year’s COVID-19 pandemic.
The first signs were on social media. There was an immediate response from local and national organizations with an eye toward providing protection and emergency relief.
We quickly found out that there is no such thing as universal health care; every person is different. Every person is different based on a multitude of different factors including ability to pay, age of the individual, health status, and a multitude of other personal factors.
When the government first proposed this legislation, it said it was to help get the economy back on track. They said this bill would provide immediate health care to every person regardless of immigration status and citizenship.
However, by the end of the week, there were a plethora of local and national news articles published about how some immigrant workers were being left out of the health care pool, and they were getting sick with COVID-19.
The first stories were about the “Covid-19+ Immigrant Workers.” These individuals are now being referred to as “Covid-19+ Immigrant Workers.” The fear, fear, and fear have now given way to an awakening as more and more organizations are now recognizing the importance of this.
The United States is now in the midst of a pandemic, no two ways about it. The country is on the cusp of a surge in cases. This surge is not only on the streets of New York, but in the streets of Denver and everywhere in between.
The people that work at many different industries are being exposed to the virus that has the potential to kill and/or severely disable individuals.
The