COVID-19 Resources to Help & Protect Us All

Looking for ways to help and protect your family during our current pandemic? I am here to help by sharing some COVID-19 Resources.

It’s April of 2020, and our quarantine and social distancing efforts, due to COVID-19, are in full swing. This epidemic has turned the world upside down and inside out. Although these times can seem daunting and uncertain, there is a very real and meaningful undertone of care, love and support all around us, if you sit still long enough, you can hear and feel it move through you. You are feeling the prayers of the world covering, calming and holding you. This is why I feel the need to share with you some COVID-19 Resources to help and protect us all.

Our Everyday Heros

We are grateful to have experts and organizations, like epidemiologists and the World Health Organization, to guide us through this time of uncertainty, people that have spent their lives preparing for exactly what we are facing today. It’s a blessing to have those that are stepping up and are willing to be leaders, even when it’s scary, even when the path is narrow, bumpy and dark.

We have the medical community risking their lives everyday, on the front lines, for us. They are quite literally putting their lives and their health on the line for ours. We are all doing the best we can with the information what we have and what we know.

Counting our Blessings

We remain in quarantine in our homes and clearly see the blessings of having steady employment during this time, for those of us that do. For those of us that do not have steady employment, we see how we are blessed with our health and our families. For those of us who have become unfortunate victims of this nondiscriminatory and cruel virus, we are grateful for the beautiful lives we’ve lived and the lives we’ve touched and the family and friends we’ve had all along our journey.

People Need Your Help

As we look around us, we can see people that need us. People reaching out because they need support and a helping hand. To put it into perspective, ten million people applied for unemployment in the last two weeks which is more than the number of people that applied for unemployment during the entire eighteen months of the great recession.

Let’s explore some industries and, as a result, people who work in those industries, that are being hit the hardest during this devastating time, from an economic perspective.

Industries Being Hit Hardest

According to USA Today, the Industries that are being hit hardest by the COVID-19 are:

1. Gambling
2. Airlines
3. Hotels
4. Movie theaters
5. Live sports
6. Cruises
7. Shipping
8. Film production
9. Automakers
10. Oil & gas
11. Retail
12. Tech
13. Conventions
14. Food service
15. Theme parks
16. Gyms
17. Construction
18. Transportation

I notated in BOLD the industries above that were referenced in more than one article I researched for this post.

For reference, the industries that are benefiting the most from COVID-19 are Ecommerce, Pharmaceuticals, Logistics/delivery, Video conferencing, Entertainment streaming and gaming.

One Person Can Make a Difference

I am a fan of 60 Minutes and watch it as religiously as possible. Last Sunday they did a piece on struggling small businesses in NYC and focused on a one eatery in particular owned by a charismatic self-made business owner, Melba Wilson, who has earned and enjoyed 16 years where patrons were lucky to find a seat in her restaurant. Like others, her business has been floundering since she was forced to close her dining room and left with only the option to serve to-go meals.

While Scott Pelley was interviewing Melba, she took a phoned in to-go order from a person who wished to remain unamious. He ordered 100 dinners to be sent to the local hospital to feed the medical staff. It was a beautiful gesture and so moving to watch on screen. Melba had tears in her eyes as she relayed the story to the viewers, as did I. I also got a sense that there are things that even I can do. Just one person CAN make a difference. One person can do something small yet powerful, and that’s what I want to talk about, the ways each of us is able to help our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters in this life.

How Can We Help?

Courtney Vinopal of PBS News Hour shared some great ideas.

1. Donate to and / or volunteer at your local food bank, as donations are down significantly.
2. Find ways to help feed students who depend on school lunches. When schools close, many students who rely on subsidized lunches or special educations programs suffer.
3. Support small business that employ low-wage workers, as these workers often don’t receive paid sick leave or health care.
4. Collaborate with neighbors to check in on the most vulnerable in your community such as the elderly or homeless.

Meals on Wheels does really good work. In fact, they care for my sweet grandparents, 89 and 87, who still live on their own but don’t cook. Having Meals on Wheels ensures they have at least one solid meal per day. This is a great volunteer opportunity to consider, as you’d simply deliver food to the doorsteps of those you’re serving.

Keep Up-to-date on COVID-19 Statistics

COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is a great resource to see the exact # of COVID-19 cases per country, the # of deaths and the # of recoveries.

IHME (Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation) is a resource that shares COVID-19 projections through May 2020 for hospital resources, deaths per day and total deaths. You can query by country.

covid-19 Resources For Those Who Cannot Help Themselves

Violence is something that happened in homes before the Coronavirus, and unfortunately it remains in homes during the Coronavirus. People that are in an unsafe place where they are being abused emotionally, physically, sexually or otherwise need help. There ARE resources to help at this time and all the time. PLEASE share this information if there is anyone you know who could benefit from it.

Futures Without Violence is a resource for people in a situation where victims of violence, abuse or homelessness can seek respite. They also offer resources for protecting immigrant families, LGBTQI and other high-risk communities of people.

Fidelity Charitable has an extensive list of organizations you can financially contribute towards. Please see their site for specifics on how to support medical needs, protect vulnerable populations and sustain nonprofits.

Caring for Those You Love the Most

The CDC has instructions on how to take care of someone you live with that becomes ill. They share the signs to look for, how to handle isolation, when isolation is no longer necessary and much more.

The Child Mind Institute is an incredible resource that supports families throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, specifically helping parents manage kids at home via live Facebook Live events, remote evaluations and telemedicine. They also have an impressive library of articles tackling how to help kids through this tough time.

During these trying times, it’s easy to be blind to the blessings all around us. In fact, we must train ourselves to seek them out, write them down and share them with those we love. The airlines have it right in this way, we must put our oxygen masks on first, before helping others, because if we run out of oxygen, we cannot be of service to anyone else. Hope these COVID-19 Resources can be of use to you and your family.