From We the People PA (http://wethepeoplepa.org/):
Sadly, some Pennsylvania legislators are pushing forward legislation this week to override Governor Wolf’s necessary closure of businesses in order to protect our health and lives.
Please use our online tool at https://actionnetwork.org/letters/24465b67c4a22f36de2bfbac374c4710 to tell your legislator to reject this amendment. Calls may be even more important—find contact information for your legislators at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm#address.
The impact of COVID-19 and the necessary response to it has been devastating to us all. Many of us are suffering from anxiety about our own health or that of our friends and relatives. Many others are suffering severe economic distress.
Yet we know that it is right to choose lives over money. Good economic policies—policies for which we and you are already advocating—can protect the vulnerable right now and restart our economy when it is safe to do so.
But nothing can bring back friends and family who die due to COVID-19.
We are shocked that some legislators are proposing an amendment that would override Governor Wolf’s stay at home order and allow businesses to reopen if they promise to follow rules that would presumably allow them to operate without endangering their employees and the rest of us.
The trouble with this proposal is three-fold.
First, there are no such rules. Businesses in which employees and customers are not only in close contact with one another, but are passing various kinds of physical objects between each other will provide the perfect opportunity for transmission of COVID-19.
Second, the proposed amendment offers no mechanism to ensure that businesses that self-certify their compliance will keep their workers and customers safe. Nor does it protect employees who refuse to work in unsafe conditions.
Third, the entire proposal ignores the risks to the whole community of reopening businesses that would enable the COVID-19 virus to spread rapidly.
(You can learn more about this issue by reading our policy brief.)
Tell your legislator to stand with Governor Wolf, not those who are choosing money over life.
We understand the economic concerns that lead some business owners, and even some employees, to want to get back to work. But the priority right now for most Pennsylvanians is to protect our lives and the lives of those who are vulnerable in this deadly crisis and then to work together to restore our economy to health.
Nicholas L. Petchel
Unless science medical fields are respected, and the response is bad, there is a good likelihood that it will also reflect bad on the politicians positions.
Nicholas L. Petchel
I an surprised that some legislators are proposing an amendment that would override Governor Wolf’s stay at home order and allow businesses to reopen if they promise to follow rules that would presumably allow them to operate without endangering their employees and the rest of us.
I understand this is a tough decision but everything that I read and see tells me we MUST follow the lead of the lead of the medical and scientific fields for if it turns out badly surly all politicians who pushed for this will be moved out!
Cheryl Ruyak
Do not choose money aka greed over human life!