John,

Day after day, the United States is logging new daily record amounts of cases of COVID-19. We’ve diagnosed 100,000 new cases in the last 48 hours!

Much of America went into lockdown in March, in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and give our systems time to prepare. Our institutions, especially the White House, squandered that lockdown, and we are just as unprepared now as we were four months ago―but further inflamed by cabin fever, unemployment, and watching the death toll tick up ever higher.

Health care professionals have been on the front lines of the pandemic since January, wearing plastic bags when they ran out of PPE. More than 120 registered nurses have now died from COVID-19 as a result of a lack of protective equipment.

Join Social Security Works and our national coalition to demand the U.S. Senate pass critical protections for our nurses. Add your name!

Nearly 130,000 Americans have been killed by the coronavirus so far―with seniors in long-term care facilities representing nearly half of the body count. The Black Lives Matter uprising, and the militarized police response to it, contrasts strongly to the nurses improvising PPE across the country. Towns with fewer than 10,000 residents have tanks for their cops, but nurses don’t have enough masks to get through the day.

This is an absolute failure of leadership.

There is no reason that months into a pandemic, that our nurses don't have enough masks. A recent survey of 23,000 nurses throughout our country determined that a stunning 87 percent of respondents reported having to reuse a single-use disposable respirator or mask with a COVID-19 patient.

Instead of lies from the White House about how we’ve supposedly “flattened” the curve and that the pandemic will just miraculously go away, we need to protect the American people from an out-of-control virus―and that means making sure our nurses and frontline workers have masks.

Join Social Security Works and our allies to demand the U.S. Senate act. Sign if you agree! Our nurses must have PPE.

A legislative solution exists. The HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives weeks ago includes essential provisions that would finally get lifesaving PPE to frontline workers. The legislation also creates an effective way to ramp up protection of PPE and to ensure masks are distributed effectively to our nurses and frontline workers.

But instead of acting, Mitch McConnell and his Republican allies instead focused on filling every last federal judgeship with far-right judges, many of whom are hostile to Social Security. And now, the Senate is heading out on a two-week July 4th vacation. Meanwhile, the pandemic is getting worse and worse, and more and more people are dying.

We can't afford to waste any more time. Add your name! Demand the Senate pass legislation to protect nurses and those on the frontlines of the pandemic.

Thank you for your support during these difficult times,

Alex Lawson
Social Security Works