PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/category/covid-19/)
The Rust Belt, in particular, is slowly seeing more and more interest in models that enable worker power without traditional union representation, which is especially true in gig economy and service and frontline industry sectors that are disproportionately made up of Black and Brown workers.
While the CARES Act has provisions intended to remove costs for individuals seeking COVID tests, anyone with insurance can still be charged if the test is not recommended by their doctor. People without insurance can be charged, even with a doctor’s recommendation.
Local resources are available to connect renters and their loved ones with financial and legal support, mental health services and safe, consistent shelter. The services, websites and programs listed here can help.
I have cerebral palsy, a disorder caused by a lack of oxygen when I was born. As a student at City Connections, I’ve learned to be more independent through real-world experiences, like navigating the city and working with professional social media teams.
PublicSource asked several questions about how Pittsburgh should move forward from the COVID-19 pandemic in wide-ranging interviews between April 6-12 with the city’s four Democratic mayoral candidates. They each had a different take on when to get vaccinated, how to bring back the city’s workforce and whether to close streets to provide more outdoor seating.
Compelling personal stories
told by the people living them. I fall into this thought experiment from time to time where I imagine what it would be like if I jumped ahead in my life by exactly a year to the date. I performed this thought experiment at the end of April 2019. I was about to exit one phase of my life and enter into an indefinite period of unemployment. However, I had some plans in store, ranging from grad school to teaching overseas.
Navigating the COVID-19 vaccination scheduling site in Allegheny County is like taking an online final exam when none of the multiple-choice options is the right answer; a privileged few are wrecking the grading curve; and the entrance to the exam site is obscured for the poor, homeless, Black and Brown. Pennsylvania has received more than 2.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines but has only delivered roughly 2 million — or 73.3%. This rate is 5.5% lower than the national average. Five percent may not sound like a lot. But in this case, it is more than just the difference between Pass and Fail.
An increase to the national average (78.8%) would mean that 146,000 more Pennsylvania residents would already have received their first dose.
Health systems that prioritize people who are able to go online for hours, hunting for scarce vaccine appointments, are creating barriers for vulnerable people who often have spent most of their lives pressing their noses against the window of a healthcare system that doesn’t seem to care about them.
The COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Allegheny County — like in most communities across the country — has been fraught with obstacles that make getting the vaccine harder for those at most risk of serious illness and death from the virus.
Whichever spreads faster — the vaccine or the virus; vaccine science or vaccine misinformation — will determine whether many thousands of Americans live or die.
