Turning Pain into Purpose and Good Policy through Marked by COVID

When my Dad became ill and subsequently died on June 30th from COVID19, my first thought was not to spark a movement and reshape public health policy. My first thought was, this should not be happening. This was preventable. 

The efficacy of health and safety measures such as mask-wearing, maintaining physical distance, and proper ventilation and hygiene were already mainstream public health measures implemented around the globe to minimize transmission to great success. While South Korea, Europe, China, and Japan reigned in their cases, the United States’ skyrocketed. Instead of a coordinated, data-driven national response to the pandemic, the federal government downplayed the virus, rushed to reopen without a plan, and sent contradictory messages across the airways to mitigate risk and slow the spread. In some cases, such as in my home state of Arizona, local elected officials became mouthpieces of misinformation and bad policy.

That bad policy included an executive order that prevented local municipalities from taking additional measures, such as passing mask ordinances, to keep their constituents safe. In late May, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey claimed it was safe for people without underlying conditions to return to pre-pandemic life. My Dad’s only pre-existing condition was trusting what the President and Governor said, and it cost him his life.

I launched Marked by COVID to serve as a platform for people to publicly share their stories and hold policymakers that failed to account. In little over a month, we have grown a social media following of thousands and have supported numerous other grieving families in channeling their grief into purpose. Some families have chosen to write an “honest obituary,” a term I coined after writing in my father’s obituary that his death was “due to the carelessness of politicians who continue to jeopardize the health of brown bodies.” Others have chosen to hold vigils, invite their governors to their loved one’s funerals, and build altars to the dead.  

Looking ahead, we have big plans, and I can trace those back to my policy roots at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and my principal value of justice. An emerging constituency is growing amongst us: people impacted (or marked) by COVID. We are the people who have survived COVID, lost a loved one to COVID, worked on the frontlines during COVID, and have disproportionately born the burden of the misguided policy and leadership in the United States around COVID. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic laid bare for all to witness the legacy of structural racism, and our movement is disproportionately indigenous, Black, and other people of color. 

As a queer woman of color, I know deserving individuals often do not end up at the table when policy is crafted. We must demand and reclaim what is ours, to have a seat at the center of the table when COVID response and restitution policies are being shaped. As a society of policymakers, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to center policy around the needs of those most impacted. While wearing my three-pronged hat of activist, advocate, and policymaker, I plan on not allowing us to waste this shot at getting it right.