Coronavirus exposes urgent need to fix gaps in Washington state’s safety net

Washington Sen. Patty Murray stood in a hearing room at the nation’s Capitol on Tuesday and hit the bullseye. Speaking of the coronavirus that made its first US landfall in her home state, Murray said, “Situations like this remind us we are all a community in a very real sense, and we all have a stake in one another’s wellbeing.”

Indeed, we do. When it comes to eradicating human pathogens, from measles to smallpox, intervention and prevention are most effective when applied to all people, including those at society’s margins.

At the time of this writing Washington state has seen more than 100 reported cases of the viral strain known as COVID-19, and ten deaths. The longer the disease is here, the more it will uncover economic and social inequities found in institutions such as healthcare, housing, employment, information access, childcare and education.

Public officials will have to fight like hell to fix them if they want to contain and manage COVID-19.

While epidemiologists around the world scramble to understand a disease that originated in a wet animal market in Wuhan, China, Murray appropriately pressed federal officials to expedite testing and emergency funding.

In the absence of a health care system that covers all people, we need the quick release of money, and lots of it, for testing, quarantines and treatment.

It’s why the state House of Representatives unanimously voted Tuesday to take $100 million from the state rainy day fund, ten times more than what budget writers had requested days earlier. Elected leaders don’t want to see some version of the Titanic wherein the rich get access to the lifeboats first.

COVID-19 will disproportionately hit the poor and uninsured. Approximately 4 percent of Washington’s white population is uninsured, compared to eight percent of the black population. Nearly 18 percent of the state’s Latino population has no health coverage.

Such statistics were sobering before, but they’re frightening now, when you consider early diagnosis is key to keeping coronavirus from spreading.

To rise to the challenge, health care systems will have to set aside their pay-to-play model, at least until the worst of this outbreak is over. A healthcare system largely driven by economic forces — new pharmaceuticals and treatments going only to those who can afford them — isn’t helpful for stopping a communicable disease.

But COVID-19 exposes inequities beyond healthcare, such as:

* Education: Schools in Washington are now planning for remote learning. What happens to kids who don’t have digital access or a device on which to learn? As County Councilman Derek Young recently tweeted, “Notice Pierce County is below the standard of high speed broadband while several nearby rural counties are above it.”

A Tacoma School District spokesman told the TNT this week that reaching every student would be “virtually impossible” due to language, income and internet access disparities.

* Paid sick leave: Murray held nothing back Tuesday when she said “people are being told to stay home for two weeks if they are sick … guess who can’t stay home?”

She answered her own question: low-wage or part-time workers who don’t have sick leave. An estimated 32 million people in the U.S. don’t qualify for this benefit.

* Homelessness: According to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 can be spread through feces; that means unsheltered folks are vulnerable to catching and spreading disease due to lack of adequate toilets and sanitation supplies.

They also don’t have the fresh running water needed for frequent hand washing, which health officials encourage everyone to do right now.

In recent years, Washington officials and taxpayers have made slow headway against these inequities, through school technology levies, public investments in emergency shelter and affordable housing, and Washington’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave program.

Now we have an urgent reason to bridge the gaps beyond moral considerations and basic human decency: to minimize the adverse effects of COVID-19 and keep it from spreading.