Growing up in the Pacific Northwest and being a part of our Southwest Washington community for 25 years, I know that we are resilient. I’ve been heartened to see our strength demonstrated in exemplary ways by our community as we face the COVID-19 outbreak, whether it is students following the Centers for Disease Control’s guidelines to ensure they remain healthy or community members preparing to take whatever steps they need to assist in our local response to the outbreak.
I know that our community spirit of responsibility and selflessness will see us through this crisis and that we will rise to this challenge. Please follow the CDC’s guidelines to reduce its spread, including handwashing with soap and water for 20 seconds, staying home when you are sick, avoiding touching your face, and disinfecting commonly touched surfaces. By working together, we can save lives.
While our community does its best to act on matters within our control, our elected leaders in Washington, D.C., have once again failed us. Their response has been insufficient, out of touch and weeks too late.
The CDC and the Washington Department of Health reported the first known COVID-19 case in the United States on January 21, less than a month after the first reported case in China. The CDC has been warning the federal government for months that an immediate response was imperative to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Immediate action should have been taken by D.C. politicians to prepare our hospitals and health care workers with test kits and a plan to process them quickly. By the time action was taken, the coronavirus was spreading throughout communities in our state and claiming more lives.
To make matters worse, many of those same D.C. politicians who were asleep at the wheel have been irresponsibly whittling down our preparedness for such a crisis.
Both Republicans and Democrats alike have repeatedly taken funding from the CDC’s Prevention and Public Health Fund — cutting billions in recent years — which was created to strengthen our public health system, in part to harden our response to a crisis such as this.
Day late, dollar short
These cuts came about because D.C. politicians put special interest donors over the long-term health of our communities, and were too shortsighted to see the consequences. As a result, we’re far less prepared for our current outbreak, and it is Washington families and small businesses that will pay the price.
Students around the state are already missing class, and small and retail businesses are suffering. As we move forward, we will continue to make sacrifices to manage and contain this crisis for months to come.
Not everyone will be able to work remotely or take sick leave and could be forced to miss pay if quarantined. Others will be forced to go to work and put themselves and their families at risk. We need action that supports those who suffer economically from this crisis — whether working families missing paychecks or businesses suffering from lack of trade, customers, or tourism.
Above all, the day late and a dollar short approach from out-of-touch elected officials in D.C. needs to end.
It’s time for real leadership that takes action to protect and strengthen our communities so we can save lives as we weather this crisis.
Carolyn Long is a political science professor at Washington State University Vancouver. She is a candidate for Congressional representative from Washington’s 3rd District.
