I am a flight attendant. I am an essential. I am a frontline worker. Next to the doctors and nurses I am most at risk for exposure. Why you might ask? Because people think this isn’t a big deal. People think this is a good time to take advantage of cheap airfare and rack up miles, or have their kid experience their first flight. Or vacation all across the nation with 5 kids cuz “flights are cheap!” Because nonessential people are not taking this seriously. I have coworkers that are DEAD. Friends that are DEAD. Coworkers/fellow FAs and pilots that are quarantined away from their families confined to hotel rooms in a different state because they can’t travel due to being infected with COVID-19. I live with a family member that has 2 autoimmune problems and theres 2 other essential workers that live in this household with her. We have to work. We have to transport doctors and nurses, plasma, medicine, emergency equipment, and other essential employees. Leisure travel needs to be closed. We are faced with the fact that people who have the LUXURY of being able to stay home from work/or work from home, do not understand that underneath this mask my teeth are gritting together in constant worry. I’m changing gloves constantly to help prevent cross contamination for not only my sake but for my passengers.
This is not an attack on your freedoms. This is not communism. This is not a hoax or a way of “controlling you”. The country does not need to reopen immediately. If you are struggling you can thank the capitalism that the government so desperately clings to and claims works. This is prime example of how it doesn’t. It’s weak and pathetic. If shutting down for 2 weeks causes this much damage this is pathetic. You shouldn’t feel you need to work during a pandemic to stimulate the economy that only the 1% benefits from. Stop endangering yourself and others for a government that doesn’t care about you. The president is going to get people killed. That is a fact. They don’t care about lives. It’s all about money. Profiting off of other people’s suffering. Stop listening to a government that believes you’re expendable. One that is willing to risk your life and let you die for the sake of the “economy” because it is FAILING to take care of the very people it is supposed to serve during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC.
I am tired of seeing my coworkers sick and dying. I am tired of seeing names of people I know in headlines. I am tired of people thinking this isn’t a big deal and not taking it seriously. Your Twitter-er in Chief does not know better than scientists. Do not listen to someone who allowed all his millionaire/billionaire friends pull their money out of the stock market and let your 401K and stocks plummet. Listen to SCIENTISTS. PERIOD.
