More Californians Should Know About Lifesaving COVID Meds

By Doug Moore | California Black Media

While I would like nothing more than to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, I’ve accepted the fact that COVID-19 is still a part of our lives. We’re a far cry from where we were in the summer of 2020 – we now know what works to keep us safe and how to mitigate the worst of the virus. Tools like COVID-19 medications can help us keep the worst of the virus at bay, if only more people knew about them.

In my role as the Executive Director of UDW Homecare Providers Union/ AFSCME Local 3930, a union fighting for the rights of domestic care workers, I’ve seen COVID-19 have a disproportionate impact on our members. Many come from vulnerable communities, and the fact that they were often given little to no protection and did not qualify as essential workers heightened the impact of the pandemic on them. Vaccines were essential in establishing safe homecare environments as the pandemic raged on. But domestic workers were (and still are) entering potentially dangerous settings every day, often without access to vital PPE, and we needed to find ways to keep themselves safe, even when they did test positive. COVID-19 medications have helped bridge that gap.

It can be hard to dodge COVID-19 even when we take precautions to stay

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