As cases of COVID-19 skyrocket, our healthcare system is overburdened, with first responders and healthcare professionals stretched to the limit.  If our future might include additional COVID-19-like threats, how will our healthcare workforce adapt to these harsh new realities, and more importantly, how will they continue to care for our most vulnerable? The one constant in the middle of this chaos, who is present even before the first responder, is the family caregiver.

With thousands of essential workers already having been exposed and potentially infected with the novel coronavirus, Gov. Ned Lamont must immediately order a workers’ compensation presumption during the pandemic. This will allow these workers to receive important healthcare and wage benefits through the workers’ compensation system.

We can all enjoy a sigh of relief that Connecticut is slowly opening up businesses and parks again. To sustain our good fortune, we need to remain vigilant lest we become like countries around the world that had to reclose their societies. I am sure we are up to the task, but there is confusion about the need for masks when outdoors.

Maggie has taken an unpaid leave of absence through no fault of her own.  She has left a job she felt competent at and felt good about to assume a job at which she feels incompetent.  Society has announced, through its pay actions, that her job in the bank is worthwhile and worthy of compensation but her job in the home is worthless and unworthy of pay.  This is precisely the wrong message for us to send.

Americans want to know why the coronavirus is ravaging the nation’s nursing homes, killing residents and staff. Regulations only allow the sickest to be admitted.  Heart, lung, kidney and liver disease are a given.  Diabetes likely.  Health is compromised, care needs are high and physical contact is unavoidable.