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The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge for our country, threatening our health, wellbeing and democracy. Now more than ever, we need to work together to ensure that our government has a coordinated, strategic response to safeguard the public’s health, protect consumers from emerging dangers and ensure people can still participate fully in our democracy.
U.S. PIRG has assembled a COVID-19 response team of policy experts, state advocates, organizers and researchers. And we are coordinating the efforts of the PIRGs around the country through our national lobbying office (U.S. PIRG). If we all pull together, we can find concrete ways to protect public health, consumers and our democracy. Here’s how you help:
Double the ventilator supply
Experts are predicting a critical shortage of ventilators to deal with the projected number of COVID-19 patients, while still being able to meet the needs of all of the other patients who need ventilators to stay alive. It's time to use federal emergency powers to ramp up ventilator supply so that we can double the available number in the next four weeks.
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Expand COVID-19 testing
Our health professionals don’t have enough fast and accurate COVID-19 tests to meet the current crisis, and we’ll need widespread testing to be able to move beyond social distancing. We’re calling on the head of testing to immediately adopt a comprehensive testing plan to meet this need.
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Stronger action needed to prevent price gouging
Some businesses are still significantly inflating prices for critical supplies even as more and more governors declare states of emergency over COVID-19. We need stronger action from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prevent sellers from taking advantage of consumers.
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Share consumer tips & resources
How do you avoid phishing and other online scams? Can you get a refund for travel expenses? How do you protect your credit? We’ve assembled a set of consumer tips and guides, and will add more in the days to come.
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Emergency election procedures
No one should have to choose between getting sick and participating in our democracy. To ensure that every eligible voter can safely cast their ballot amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. PIRG is calling on states to adopt emergency universal absentee voting.
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Release ventilator repair information
As the demand for ventilators and equipment used to diagnose and treat COVID-19 rises, we need to make sure equipment is working. We are calling on manufacturers to make all their repair information and service keys available immediately, and we're supporting iFixit's project to catalog repair information.
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Stop bad bailouts
Congress and the president must focus on addressing the urgent health crisis and meeting the immediate needs of Americans — not rushing through hastily drawn-up bailouts to industries that harm our health or are not essential to Americans’ daily lives right now.
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Meeting students' basic needs
Many college students are worried about how campus shutdowns will affect their ability to put food on the table and pay bills. Here are a few of the ways that institutions are stepping up to meet students’ basic needs in this moment of uncertainty.
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25 things to do at home
Many people across the United States are bracing for weeks of school closures and social distancing and are searching for ways to make the most of this challenging period. To help parents grapple with the new realities of child-rearing during social distancing, we've come up with a list of 25 activities kids can do to make a positive impact from home.
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