Congress must keep COVID-19 money flowing to help the uninsured

The federal govt has tragically failed to fund unexpected emergency supplemental funding for COVID-19 screening and therapy for the uninsured. On April 5, funding for vaccine administration will operate out. The finish of the government’s sizeable expenditure in earning vaccines, boosters, solutions and masks greatly offered, regardless of potential to pay out, threatens the past 14 months of progress from COVID.

Chicago has sponsored hundreds of situations to make sure equitable obtain to vaccines and tests, carried out by public entities, non-income businesses, clinics, colleges, hospitals and pharmacies. The announcement that all funding of these sources for the uninsured will stop undermines this function.

Vaccine efforts in Chicago are previously shutting down. A single such work is with a local community-based mostly corporation, Centro San Bonifacio, which opened a weekly vaccine clinic in November 2021 with Broadway Pharmacy and wellness treatment companies from the Chicago Vaccine Brigade. The clinic served people until finally previous 7 days, when vaccines turned unavailable owing to funding cuts.

There are numerous far more initiatives this sort of as this one throughout Chicago and the nation, reaching the uninsured and/or hard to access.

The failure to make resources available now will be disastrous as new strains of COVID emerge. Have we figured out very little in excess of the past two many years about the risk of under-preparedness? How quite a few extra preventable deaths and severe illnesses will we encounter?

We urge all Chicagoans to produce to their reps in Congress to demand full funding for COVID-19.

Chicago Vaccine Brigade Leadership: Peg Dublin, RN, MPH Beth Blacksin, RN, PhD Ellen Mason, MD Kathleen Kilbane, RN, MSN Charles Gutfeld, RN, MPH, MBA Carol Friedman Candace Wayne, JD.

A tribute to handwritten letters

We uncovered in college that Abraham Lincoln voiced his displeasure with Gen. George Meade in a letter Lincoln by no means despatched. The 16th president wrote the letter in July 1863, 11 times immediately after the struggle of Gettysburg. The Union Military, led by Meade, had been victorious at Gettysburg, but in the subsequent days the standard unsuccessful to pursue the retreating Confederate Army and prevent it from achieving the basic safety of Virginia. In his letter, Lincoln reprimanded Meade for missing an possibility to conclusion the war.

Our historical past instructor stated Lincoln had a behavior of inserting the letters he wrote in his desk drawer right away. In the early morning, he frequently resolved not to send them, especially when they ended up important of other individuals. Reflecting further on his letter to Meade, Lincoln regarded as factors these as the excellent amount of casualties the Union Military experienced endured at Gettysburg. He sealed the letter in an envelope, and it was afterwards located amid many others Lincoln made the decision not to ship.

How quaint it all now seems. Today we never craft letters in longhand at a desk we crucial in messages on the run. We don’t pause in advance of mailing a letter we rapidly strike “send” in advance of we have supplied ourselves a possibility to consider.

I bear in mind a customer complaint letter I acquired when I managed a shoe retailer on Michigan Avenue. The handwriting was shaky but legible. The language was simple and easy. The grammar and spelling were suitable. The customer claimed he was unhappy in his newest pair of Florsheim sneakers for the reason that the sole was putting on out immediately after just 6 months. He experienced usually worn Florsheim footwear, as experienced his father. He had purchased them at the company’s retailer in his hometown right up until it shut several years ago.

I think about the buyer sitting at a desk, or possibly the kitchen desk, to generate the letter. He expressed himself in a tone that was persuasive instead than angry. At one time, his letter may possibly have been deemed really everyday. In my reply, I confident him we would substitute the shoes and thanked him for his extremely very good letter.

David Caplan, West Rogers Park

Ditch Columbus for Vespucci, an Italian worthy of a statue

It would seem the tug of war in excess of the Grant Park statue of Christopher Columbus is again on Chicago’s agenda, as if everything has transformed considering the fact that it was eliminated months back in the wake of an uproar more than it. The entire world has figured out Columbus’ ethical failings are much too egregious to ignore, substantially fewer revere, and overshadow his fantastic deeds. That is why Robert E. Lee’s statues have been eradicated: His lead to and deeds had been too flawed to stand, now that our nation rejects mythology in favor of specifics. Both of those adult males have much too lots of skeletons in their closets to any for a longer time be noticed as heroic.

Even Columbus’ alleged “discovery of America” rings hollow due to the fact this continent was already populated. If in the similar era a crew of Native Americans had sailed a boat eastward and landed any place on European shores, could it be claimed that they “discovered” an previously populated Europe?

Just after Columbus, a different Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, built a name for himself discovering not in the name of Spain as Columbus did, but in the title of Italy. Contrary to Columbus, his daring deeds have not been found to be controversial. Why not swap the Columbus statue with one particular of Vespucci, right after whom The united states — a Latinized model of Amerigo — is named? Voila! A real, uncontroversial hero of Italian ancestryworthyof a statue in Grant Park or anywhere else should really settle the challenge.

Each realityand Italianpride would be honored in equal evaluate.

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park