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Price increases and speculation have affected everything from hand sanitizer to respirator prices that, in some cases, have quintupled almost overnight. Cities, states and hospitals continue to fight for scarce gloves, gowns, masks and fans. Four out of five front-line nurses do not have enough protective equipment. In the richest country in the history of the world, nurses caring for patients with coronavirus have resorted to using garbage bags as makeshift protective gear. That is an international shame.
The current crisis has also exposed, to a horrifying degree, how the massive level of income and wealth inequality in the United States increases inequalities in health care and economically devastates our most vulnerable people. Rural hospitals and community health clinics, which often treat the poor, are about to declare bankruptcy and close. Major outbreaks are attacking our black, Hispanic, Native American, and undocumented communities, as well as the incarcerated and the homeless.
