Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of “Our Stories,” a new WOW Dems series dedicated to telling personal stories related to the critical issues of our time – beginning with the COVID-19 crisis. The first part of this article and the personal story comes from a WOW Dems member and American ex-pat, Sabina Brady, who lives in China. Share your personal story at communications@wowdems.org.

Hammer-and-Dance

By Sabina Brady

A family friend – whose daughter is a physician at a well-respected hospital in a major city on the east coast – contacted me earlier this week with news that illustrates the true urgency of the COVID-19 situation in the United States.

The daughter is presently working extremely grueling and long overnight shifts because 20 of the 31 residents/doctors with whom she works are quarantined. What’s more, her chief attending doctor tested positive for the coronavirus more than a week ago. This young woman confirms that critically needed medical equipment and personal protective equipment (“PPE”) are scarce – even in her hospital, which has better resources than many. Sadly, this scenario is happening across the U.S.

How can any American risk going to a hospital or medical care facility during this pandemic crisis when even the medical staff may be down by 2/3 due to exposure or infection? Further, without adequate PPE and because an infected person can be asymptomatic for some time, how can we be sure those who are still available aren’t inadvertently infecting their patients? What type of care, if any, can Americans expect to receive?

Here’s what needs to happen:

  • America needs to urgently implement a comprehensive Hammer and Dance strategy in every community across the nation. This strategy must remain in effect until there is evidence-based data showing restrictions and precautions can be relaxed (when communities can move from the “Hammer” into the “Dance” phase).

  • In support and to accelerate this effort, each of us must make our own grassroots contribution by staying at home and self-isolating. 

Without a viable and healthy people, a country and its economy cannot function. It’s NOT an either-or choice between ensuring a community’s public health or its economic health. The two are inextricably intertwined, with the former key to determining the latter – NOT the other way around.

It’s only through these measures that we have any hope of slowing or stopping the pandemic’s transmission, flattening the curve, and reducing the unsustainable burden on our already-overtaxed and under-resourced healthcare systems. It’s only through these measures that we can move faster and more effectively to the “Dance” phase.

Sabina’s Personal Story

I’m an American expatriate who has lived and worked in Beijing for almost 40 years. I connected with WOW Dems and its engaged and dedicated members through my sister, Rebecca Brady, a long-term Dallas resident. Despite living so far from home, I want to contribute what I can to help America overcome this increasingly existential challenge. 

For more than two months, my husband and I have been “staying at home” in our Beijing apartment in a pretty stringent (although nothing compared to what was imposed in Wuhan) municipal lock down. Through living here, reading the national news, and keeping in touch with friends across China, we’ve watched the epidemic unfold here. We’ve also witnessed China’s unified, national “Hammer” response to bring COVID-19 under control. Though China’s not completely there yet, it seems to have arrived at a juncture where the economy can receive the necessary attention and resources to be restarted; i.e., the front-end of the “Dance”. 

For those interested in better understanding what I have seen here, I’d be happy to share.

– Sabina Brady, WOW Dems Legislative Committee Member 

 

What can you do to help?

By WOW Dems Communications Committee

  1. Donate essential items to America’s healthcare workers and to your community. Check your local news for needs specific to your area’s hospitals and front line healthcare workers; across the country, they need everything from masks to meals to moral support.

  2. Tell the president NOT to relax social distancing guidelines, which he intends to do over the next couple of weeks – DESPITE the fact that we now lead the world in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Relaxing guidelines puts all of us at incredible risk. We need caution, not Trump’s trademark recklessness, at this time.

  3. Sign the Hammer-and-Dance suppression strategy petition, which (at the time of this posting) needs 65,143 more signatures by April 18 to get a response from the White House.

  4. Healthcare inequity in the U.S. has exacerbated this crisis. Contact your elected officials and demand they institute comprehensive measures to care for every single American affected by COVID-19. Advocate for policies like Medicare for All and support Democratic candidates dedicated to making Medicare for All and Medicaid expansions realities.

  5. Support WOW Dems. If you can’t contribute right now, join us in our fight to turn America blue.

  6. Share YOUR COVID-19 experiences. “Our Stories” is dedicated to ensuring your voices are heard – which is critical during this unprecedented crisis.

  7. Stay home & stay safe.