This is where you’re all going to hate me. My mom (who recently passed away) was sick all my life. I grew up in hospitals, so steeped in her care for decades that medical professionals frequently assumed I was also a medical professional. I’m not, but I am a thinker, and lately I have been thinking about how our political system has impaired our ability to prepare for COVID-19.

When I say that my thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this I mean it, but even more than that, my words are with them now, and with all those who will be affected in the very near future. This isn’t about stopping the spread of COVID-19; it’s about slowing it, so that the number of people who are sick at any given time does not exceed the capacity of our local hospitals. If the number of those concurrently requiring care stays low enough we have a chance of having enough hospital beds, intensive care rooms, and ventilators when someone you love needs them. Sadly, we lack things that other developed countries have which would help with this, for our development has been stymied by big business interests that are all too quick to crush anything that hurts their bottom line, and these things would.

Go ahead and be mad at me for “politicizing this” now. God-willing, you will be able to dismiss me and everything I’m about to say because it will be wrong. If I’m right though, please remember all of this and change your worldview in every way, starting with how you vote in November. This is a non-exhaustive list of things we will wish we could do to slow the spread, but can’t, because it is almost certainly too late to be able to do them:

(1) Offer Universal Paid Sick Leave: The people who are most able to spread a virus person-to-person are the very people who are unlikely to have paid sick days or job security if they can’t come to work for a few weeks due to illness. They’ll be there making sandwiches, delivering food, driving us, cleaning restrooms, stocking shelves, bagging groceries, making change, and even taking care of your children and elderly relatives. They’re going to be coming to work sick because they can’t afford to stay home.

(2) Pay Everyone A Living Wage: Those people listed in (1) above partially can’t afford to stay home because they can’t afford to even buy supplies for two weeks of quarantine. The Federal Reserve Board reported a little over a year ago that four out of ten Americans couldn’t afford a $400 emergency if one came up and would need to borrow or go into debt to cover it. Staying home to slow transmission will cost a lot more than $400. If we paid everyone a living wage we would be that much closer to making quarantine affordable.

(3) Take Better Care of Families with Children: Real (inflation-adjusted) wages have remained stagnant or decreased even as businesses report record profits and those benefiting from those profits hoard an ever-increasing share of our nation’s net wealth. A local school district shifting to online learning will save, on average, ten lives a week, but the very school districts that are most likely to have students whose parents are mentioned making your sandwiches in (1) above are the same ones that are going to be reluctant to shift to online learning. Their students need school not just for education, but for breakfast, lunch, and internet access. If we took better care of our families with children they could afford to have internet access and food at home.

(4) Invest In Education: We can’t retroactively invest in education, but if we did, we would have a population that knows that you can treat a mild fever at home with over-the-counter antipyretic drugs such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen. I went to a very good public school and learned this in health class. Not every public school is good, almost entirely because not every public school is adequately funded. This means that a huge swath of our population doesn’t know that not every person who gets COVID-19 needs to go to the doctor. Two days ago someone with a graduate degree who lives in Washington State said that if they had a fever they were going to seek medical care, which is just nuts. Sitting in a waiting room with other sick people to see a doctor who is going to send you home and tell you to alternate ibuprofen and acetaminophen every two hours is a great way to spread the virus and exhaust our healthcare system. Lack of education is going to spread the virus and literally kill people.

(5) Offer Universal Healthcare: Call it whatever you want — Medicare-For-All, Single-Payer— we are going to wish we had it. Although the government has the right to impose a quarantine if there is a public health risk, laws do not stipulate who has to pay for the associated costs. A need for quarantine is so rare that there is not even a precedent to follow. This means that middle class families, the ones most likely to have high co-pays they are unable to cover out-of-pocket, are going to be unlikely to seek medical care even if they need it. People are going to die because they will be reluctant to pay a $250 ER co-pay even if they think they’re having trouble breathing. Our elderly will be especially vulnerable even with Medicare, for not everyone can afford the best supplement plan and out-of-pocket costs are real.

(6) Offer Paid Family Leave: When our elderly family members end up seriously ill from the virus they’re going to need help, and our system is not set up to allow families to provide that care to their loved ones. It’s almost easier when they need to be hospitalized, for then you can still go to work and hospital staff attend to their minute-by-minute needs. Not every patient is going to need hospitalization though, and someone has to monitor their temperature and help them take their breathing treatments. When my mom was sick I could take as much time as I needed to help her and be with her in her last days, but most employers aren’t as flexible as mine. Only four states offer paid family leave. That is not OK.