As mask mandates end at schools, people return to the office and infections and hospitalization numbers drop, many people have a renewed sense of optimism that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. But while COVID-19 restrictions ease and the country returns to some semblance of normalcy, health professionals stress the importance of continuing vaccination efforts.

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With the colder months just ahead, Massachusetts is preparing to reopen field hospitals to manage a rise in hospitalizations.

A supermajority of the Massachusetts House has co-sponsored a bill that would help ensure that all state workers can take paid sick time if they are diagnosed with COVID-19 or need to quarantine.

“We’re in the middle of the expected fall COVID surge, but there’s still time to act and prevent more hospitalizations and deaths this winter,” stated Lew Finfer, co-executive director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network (MCAN) and a co-chair of Raise Up Massachusetts. “Tens of thousands of Massachusetts workers have used up their existing paid sick time or never had any to begin with, and they feel financial pressure to go to work even when they might be sick. This amendment would allow workers to stay home and avoid spreading COVID to their coworkers and the public.”

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Speakers included Indiana education leaders, a health-care worker, a formerly incarcerated individual, a woman in need of health insurance and elected officials.

The Who Cares For Us Town Hall called on Gov. Eric Holcomb to do more to help those hardest hit.

Anna Gonzales is a mother and the daughter of immigrants, whose family lost work at an upscale Fort Wayne restaurant and don’t recieve unemployment, or stimulus aid because of undocumented status.

“Even though we had been paying taxes for 20 years,” says Gonzales. “The 20 years we’ve been in Indiana.”

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Newark, NJ –Monday, March 23, 2020 —On Friday, more than 40 New Jersey organizations, immigrant rights advocates, religious leaders, and community leaders sent a letter to ICE’s Newark Field Office urging the implementation of emergency measures to protect immigrant detainees from the spread of coronavirus in New Jersey’s immigration detention centers.

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“As people of faith and common sense we know that everyone must be included in the protections and support provided by the CARES Act if we are to slow the spread of coronavirus and revive our economy. Now more than ever our fates are tied together. The legislation passed by the Senate last night is wrong and imprudent to exclude immigrant and mixed-status families from stimulus payments. Everyone, especially the most vulnerable, need to be protected.

All workers who pay federal taxes must be eligible for rebates, including those who pay federal taxes with ITIN numbers provided by the IRS. We all have a stake in making sure Immigrant workers across hues, countries of origin and language, who are on the front line of producing and distributing food and caring for the sick, elderly and disabled are able to stay safe. 

We applaud the progress that was made this week to refocus the CARES Act on hospitals and working people, but our work is not finished until everyone belongs to a society that honors their dignity, humanity, culture, language, religion and labor. So we ask the House to do the right and wise thing by amending the legislation to include immigrant families.” – Rev. Alvin Herring, executive director of Faith in Action.

Undoubtedly, the Ohio experience is testament that we live in a nation that says it values children and families but doesn’t live up to that value.

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Doctors spent 12 hours treating the gashes across his nose and right eye. Two weeks later, Torres was shocked to receive a $20,000 bill in the mail. After The Dallas Morning News wrote about his story, Baylor Scott & White Health, which oversees the hospital, helped him apply for financial assistance to forgive his debt.

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After a brief discussion, the guard agreed to let Medicaid recipient Kellie McCann and the Rev. Karen Staton visit the Family Resources office. “They got the idea. … I told a lot of people why we were there, what we were doing and who we were,” Staton, pastor of Destiny Life Church, reported a short time later.

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