Thread by @khadastrophic

LOL. I really thought that COVID would force us to expand access to paid sick leave & leave to care for ill loved ones.

Of course it just ended up with us making sick people go to work or neglect their sick family, as always.

You'd think I would know this place by now.

Maybe I should just make this my chain of "if we had done better with COVID fantasies" and used this as an opportunity to enrich the lives of normal Americans rather than corporations.

For example, what if we used COVID as an opportunity to forgive student debt instead?

What if we used COVID as an opportunity to be more flexible about k-12 schooling, allowing kids with disabilities and other challenges to learn aside peers at home (and still have access to peers when they were well)?

What if we allowed kids who had a Covid positive family member to stay home and learn instead of imposing on them the guilt of getting classmates sick? What if we figured out a way to let immunity-challenged teachers teach from home?

What if the federal government produced its own covid tests, like the vaccines, so that it could distribute them for free instead of people shouldering the cost of $24 each at home? What if the president forced test production to ramp up right now??

What if the mass distribution of a free vaccine made the government realize that more things should be free?? What if our government created a company that produced low-cost insulin??

What if everyone had the same health insurance as Congress??

What if we didn't do all of our family gatherings and celebrations during cold and flu season?? What if we adapted by creating new types of spring and early summer gatherings that bring loved ones together???

What if we started NEW traditions?

What if we saw how important childcare is to America's economic health and invested money into paying and well-compensating childcare workers and subsidizing childcare facilities instead of $1 trillion into the stock market?

What if we treated teachers like they were essential?

What if we did pool surveillance testing in every school in the country in order for them to stay open and required masks (as linked to federal funding of those schools/districts/states)??

What if the CDC prioritized mitigation over the economy? What if an expert in public health led the country's COVID-19 task force?

What if the CDC told the government how to respond to a disease instead of the govt telling the CDC??