Virginia must stay committed to its workforce and protect our workers and our communities from COVID-19 with a strong, permanent COVID-19 OSHA standard. 

This pandemic is far from over. Even with vaccines, it will take a long time to build immunity in the population and strong workplace safety protections will continue to be needed. 

I personally have known 3 people who have contracted the virus while on the job/at their workplaces, and have passed away because they were not supplied the proper PPE by their employers, who couldn't take the proper time off necessary to recuperate, so the added stress exacerbated the horrible effects of the virus, and because of it, they are no longer able to be a part of working for Virginia and our families are without them.

We don't know how long this pandemic will last nor if something else like this will ever happen again, but what we do know, is that it is better to be prepared ahead of time, than to wait until the bad thing happens and trying to fix it. 

The permanent standard is necessary to protect working people in Virginia. A thriving and healthy working class is what it takes to beat back the virus, and what will be necessary to build back our economy once we come out on the other side of the pandemic.