I am one of the many "essential" workers that are forced to potentially expose themselves to COVID-19 daily.

People with diabetes, heart disease, cancer, AIDS, etc. are far more likely to face severe symptoms with COVID-19, and are beside the elderly as most vulnerable.

The majority of these employees do not have paid leave, and they cannot afford to take time off of work to protect their health. Imagine waking up every day to face the real possibility that a ventilator is in your near future because you need to pay bills and you cannot stay home.

It's pretty terrifying.

If we continue to force these employees to put their health aside for a paycheck, we will do nothing but exacerbate the current situation; we don't have enough ventilators. A good number of people will die simply because they needed to pay rent.

These are people's mothers, fathers, sons, daughters...my children may very well be without a mother before this is all over. These places should not be open in the manner that they are to begin with; forcing at risk employees to face the possibility of death for a paycheck is just cruel.

Do not put the economic health of companies that do not care for us over the real health of these employees.