Coronavirus: We’re only as safe as our most vulnerable neighbors

She’s a cashier at a counter uptown. It’s a job that pays most of the bills, but not the insurance bill. So she ignores the cold symptoms that come each winter, and she tries to ignore what she hopes is just a stomach bug. It’s easier to work while you’re sick than for your bank account to recover from acknowledging that sickness.

He’s a cook at the neighborhood meat-and-three. It’s one of the 75 percent of food service jobs that don’t have sick pay, so if he feels like he’s coming down with something, he grabs some cold medicine and heads in to work. His bottom line leaves him little choice.

You may know people like them, or maybe not. You may not have given them much thought.

Do you care now?

As the number of domestic Coronavirus cases grows — North Carolina announced two documented cases this week — public health experts are worrying that the virus could be spread by workers and others who can’t afford the health care protections and benefits that many of us take for granted. The possibility of such spread is certainly unknown at this early stage, but the threat has revealed an uncomfortable reality: Our well-being may be subject to the health of the least insured and most vulnerable among us.

They are nearly 400,000 North Carolinians without medical coverage and the 45 percent of Americans who don’t have paid sick days. They are the people who pause at what’s routine and dread what should be merely inconvenient — taking a couple hours to have a doctor check you out. That trip takes time that can’t be recovered, and that visit has to be weighed against the number of meals it might pay for. For too many, it’s a cruel calculation that brings no good choices.

Maybe you don’t like the idea of the government helping these people out. Maybe you think they should bear the consequences of the life choices they’ve made. Maybe you haven’t even haven’t bothered to even give it much thought.

Do you care a little more?

Our well-being has always been tied to the most vulnerable. When people can’t afford the time or cost of basic health care, emergency rooms get clogged, medical costs rise and illness can spread. A Cornell University report last month showed that influenza infection rates dropped by 11 percent in a year in 10 states that enacted mandates requiring employers to offer paid sick leave.

Now we share something more stark: That anxiety and helplessness you feel these days at the slow drip of coronavirus news? Imagine having health symptoms that you fear signal something bad, yet you can’t afford to find out how bad. It’s been a reality for millions of Americans for years.

The short-term solutions: Congress should follow the coronavirus template laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who recommends that uninsured or poorly insured Americans get evaluation and care for coronavirus for free, and that anyone who has symptoms - or has a dependent with symptoms - can get paid time off through an emergency paid leave program.

The longer-term solution: North Carolina should give hundreds of thousands of its citizens access to health care with Medicaid expansion, and Republicans in Congress should strengthen the Affordable Care Act instead of weakening it and working to eliminate it in court. Congress, if not states, also should provide all Americans access to paid sick days and family medical leave.

To do so is the right thing for all of us, but more importantly, it’s the right thing for the least protected among us.