Official Daily Action for Tuesday, August 30, 2022

This week, the federal government will be ending its program for distributing free COVID-19 rapid tests, due to lack of funding. Congress has failed to pass additional pandemic funding for months and this is one of the consequences. Rapid at-home tests are one of the essential strategies for stemming the spread of COVID-19 and without free and easy access to test kits, we lose our access to even KNOW if we have COVID. And as with most situations, the communities most affected by this lack of funding will be those that are already most disadvantaged. Today’s daily action is to urge your elected officials to fund COVID relief programs now.

Action

Senators:

Maria Cantwell: 202-224-3441 or http://www.cantwell.senate.gov/contact/email/form

Patty Murray: 202-224-2621 or http://www.murray.senate.gov/write-to-patty/

Representatives:

Pramila Jayapal: 202-225-3106 or http://jayapal.house.gov/contact

Adam Smith: 202-225-8901 or http://adamsmith.house.gov/contact

Script

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I’m a constituent in Seattle, [ZIPCODE]. I’m reaching out because the federal government has announced that it’s ending the program for free COVID-19 rapid tests this week because of a lack of funding. The pandemic has NOT ended and neither should our relief programs. We need COVID relief programs to be robust and well funded and I urge you to please work to provide these programs that we need.

Background

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/28/politics/free-at-home-covid-test-government-program-ending/index.html