Longtime Santa ‘fill in’ and author of “The Elves Indoors” shares why his job is more important than ever and why Get Us PPE is on the ‘nice list’.
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Now more than 150 riders strong, the Dames do Care crew deliver PPE on motorcycles all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
California was hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic this past summer, and a new report from the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center examines how much of that toll could have been avoided had the state maintained an adequate PPE stockpile.
By Rebecca Finkel As pandemic restrictions begin to lift, many of us are left facing questions that feel impossible to answer: Is it safe to visit family? Can my children go to school? Eat in or take out? What makes these decisions particularly difficult is that the risk we’re trying to avoid is largely invisible — How do you protect yourself from a danger that you can’t even see? Besides PPE, one of the best tools that we have in this fight is data. Get Us PPE is the leading nonprofit distributing donated PPE in the United States, and we…
By Zayba Syed The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis held a virtual hearing on May 21, 2020, led and moderated by Representatives James Clyburn and Steve Scalise. It featured testimonies from essential workers, including physicians, restaurant owners, grocery store workers, nurses, bus drivers, and technicians. Scalise opened the hearing by saying, “Too many families have been unable to say goodbye. Too many Americans have lost their jobs or their business. Too many Americans and students had their education interrupted. But because of people all across the country, like the witnesses we have today, the virus has met its match….
By Grace Jin and Mai Lynn Miller Nguyen Volunteers are the engine of GetUsPPE, from the founding physicians to those contributing their commitment and skills at every level. As Asian Pacific American Heritage Month comes to a close, we celebrate some of our many volunteers of Asian descent, as well as all Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders (AAPI) on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19. This heritage month arrives at a moment when Asian Americans face a rising tide of xenophobia and scapegoating, with more than 1,700 incidents of harassment submitted to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center since mid-March. As…
By Grace Jin, a blog writer at GetUsPPE.org and health policy student at Yale University. Most medical students were sent home when Covid-19 first ravaged hospitals around the country, but many have sought ways to help their future colleagues remotely. Suhas Gondi, MD/MBA student at Harvard Medical School, felt that “GetUsPPE provided an avenue to contribute by helping to keep those on the front lines safe—even if I can't be beside them.” Gondi, along with Harvard medical students Adam Beckman and Tomi Ojo, joined GetUsPPE as some of its earliest volunteers and contributors to the grassroots effort. Other current and...
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Interviewed and edited by Erika Lynn-Green and Daniel Packard This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity On the origins of Protect Native Elders My name is Jo Overton. I am an enrolled tribal member of, what the federal government calls, the Rosebud Sioux. However, we call ourselves the Sicangu Lakota. My family continues to live on the reservation. I live in Utah. [Protect Native Elders] all started with a conversation that I had with a friend, Andi. I’m pretty sure she’s the one who introduced me to Tyrone Whitehorse. Tyrone and I were talking about doing masks….
Brown paper bags used to pack lunches or make whimsical costumes. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, brown paper bags have found a new use. Frontline healthcare workers store their most prized possession in them: their used N95 mask. That’s right, used. The systems of rationing protective gear and worse, patient care, have become all too familiar. With the flow of patients outpacing the supply of ventilators, hospital beds, and personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary to care for them, physicians must face tough decisions every day to stay safe while caring for their patients. Today, we are spotlighting some of these…
