Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018593
Event Planning
COVID-19 Emergency Response Group
COVID-19 Emergency Response Group ... (draft as of 1 April 2020) ... Provisional Statement of Purpose & Platform
Peter Burgess
https://zoom.us/j/213528787
COVID-19 Emergency Response Group (draft as of 1 April 2020)
Provisional Statement of Purpose & Platform https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tm2Jx3VpoGoR00bVKJW8EcVu9-8kLD_8cX8gWzdKQKM/edit# (please provide comments)
Now more than ever, people from the U.S. and globally must come together as a beloved community, and substantively address the COVID-19 pandemic both in America and globally. We are joining forces to build an intersectional and diverse “COVID-19 Emergency Response Group” that can help draft federal legislation, support existing legislation, lobby the United Nations and governments around the World.
In the USA, we will educate and lobby civil society and Congress about the need to pass “Emergency COVID-19 Legislation” to address the lethal COVID-19 pandemic. We must also have a significant presence in the national and international media regarding COVID-19, and create a sense of urgency to pass federal emergency legislation that addresses the public health and economic security needs of all the people. We must have an organized diverse and intersectional movement that has the needed “critical mass” and political/strategic unity to pass truly progressive federal legislation, and defeat bad legislation regarding COVID-19.
Millions of lives will depend on our efforts.We must not abdicate our fate to elected officials; we therefore must be an “engaged citizenry,”
We have allies in Congress that can introduce bold, transformational, and justice-based COVID-19 legislation in collaboration with the Bipartisan Solutions Caucus, Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucuses, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus , Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific American, and the Native American Caucus Members of the American people. However, this can only be successfully accomplished, if we approach Congress as a unified COVID-19 grassroots movement.
We must place “moral pressure” on the Trump Administration and Congress, Governors, Local Governments, and international organizations to do the right thing, and pass “Emergency COVID-19 Legislation” that will truly address the urgent needs of our medical workers, people who need health care with no financial barriers, and create a robust economic safety net. The time to do this is now!
Globally, we strive to have unity, solidarity, compassion, justice and revolutionary love and support a global movement to EndCOVID19. We will have the highest levels of coordination among organizations and people in the “COVID-19 Emergency Response Group” We must also organize the unorganized, and do what is right for the people-- no matter what obstacles we face.
COVID19 Emergency Response Group Provisional Platform #EndCOVID19
A novel coronavirus called COVID-19 is circulating widely globally. Unfortunately, our governments are failing to mount an effective response to this public health emergency.
As members of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Group, we call for immediate and courageous action, we are optimistic, and we are committed to doing everything we can to based on the science, data, and evidence to save lives. We call for bold action now:
PROTECT THE PEOPLE: We call on our political leaders to aggressively implement 'social distancing' and containment, as these are the most effective public health strategies to interrupt COVID-19 transmission. We understand that this will temporarily disrupt our lives, and we are ready for social distancing, containment, and quarantine, as we want to do everything possible to protect ourselves, our families, our health workers, and our neighbors. We must protect all people with a comprehensive “justice” safety net: universal health care, food, housing, income, clothing, education, comprehensive job-skills, unemployment benefits, social services, and health care, including mental health services through the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. We call for a clean energy economy with job training and government subsidies for clean energy and green jobs.
TEST THE PEOPLE: We call for free, point-of-care, rapid COVID-19 antigen testing for every person that needs testing, as fast as possible. We demand that test results are returned in hours, not days. Every effort should be made to accelerate testing of any person that is showing symptoms of COVID-19 so that clusters can be recognized quickly and community transmission can be limited. Testing of front-line health workers, doctors, nurses and all hospital workers are priority populations. Antibody testing of people who have recovered COVID-19 infection will be necessary for eligibility to donate plasma immunoglobulins as a medical therapy if, as well as, eligibility for return to work once national social distancing guidelines are developed.
TREAT THE PEOPLE: We call on all people with COVID-19 infection to have access to free health and medical services and for all medical conditions. Health providers must be provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure that they can prevent COVID-19 infection. We call on our government to invest in a rapid surge of hospital beds, respiratory ventilators, new therapeutic responses and vaccines, so that everyone that may need treatment in the weeks and months ahead gets treatment vaccines (when available) and as soon as possible.
JOBS & JUSTICE: COVID-19 is causing a severe economic crisis that will require a comprehensive economic transformation that should be developed to ensure economic, racial, gender and environmental justice systems to provide job & justice for all.
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KEY RESOURCES
- USA Projections Model by IHME: https://covid19.healthdata.org/
- Tracking COVID-19 Pandemic, JHU: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
- COVID Act Now: https://covidactnow.org/
- CDC: www.coronavirus.gov
- WHO:https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
- Link to survey: http://bitly.ws/87bK
- Link to page where the team will post reporting: https://medium.com/covid-evictions