As an essential worker on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m voting for Joe Biden for President. I want the horror movie we’re living through to end, and with a true leader like Vice President Biden in office, I think we have a fighting chance.

Nothing cemented my feeling more than watching the President call catching COVID-19 “a gift from God,” and telling us we shouldn’t be afraid of this deadly disease. Rather than reassuring me, his words terrified me. How many more lives will be lost, how many more families will fall into poverty? Enough is enough. We have a civic duty to vote this inept President out before he throws our democracy into the kind of chaos we can’t come back from.

President Trump can’t tell me not to be afraid after what I’ve experienced on the frontlines of this pandemic. As the shift supervisor of a janitorial crew, I’m very proud of the hard work my team has done to keep our worksite clean and safe throughout this pandemic. I love my job, and I feel like I’m doing my part during this crisis. The experience of getting through this together has only brought my co-workers and me closer together. We take care of each other by following the health protocol and by checking in on how everyone’s doing during this tough time. I think the President could learn something from this kind of unity, this kind of care. It’s what the America I love is about.

But being on the frontlines hasn’t been easy. Even as so many Americans and their families have stayed safe at home, we essential workers have been out there. This has often been terrifying, especially in the early days before we knew how to protect ourselves. I believe that it nearly cost me my life.

In February, before many of us even knew that COVID-19 was already in our communities, I got sick with what I know in my heart was the virus, but at the time, the doctors thought it was pneumonia. After catching a fever, I ended up in the hospital intensive care unit on a respirator, and even after I was on the mend, I continued to have no sense of taste, smell, or appetite. This was before hospitals stopped allowing visitors, so my wife was by my bedside the entire time, and my family came in from Puerto Rico and Connecticut. They all got sick afterwards, some very severely, and my brother tested positive for the virus in March. I’m grateful every day that we all survived. Millions around the world have not been so lucky, and their families will be grieving them long after this pandemic is over.

To anyone reading this who supports Trump–please, open your eyes. He doesn’t care about any of us, as his actions throughout the this devastating pandemic show. COVID would’ve hit our country no matter what, but we didn’t have to have the highest rate of recorded deaths in the world. The President of the most powerful country on the planet should be leading by example–not creating super-spreader events by holding large indoor rallies, mocking Joe Biden for masking up while questioning the necessity of masks, and putting secret service agents and his own staff at risk so he can wave to supporters. The blood of thousands is on his hands.

There’s a better way with Joe Biden, a public servant with integrity and a comprehensive, fact-based plan to fight the coronavirus–through testing, expanding access to personal protective equipment, and reopening safely so our kids can get back to school and we can get our economy back on track without sacrificing American lives. As Vice President, he stood shoulder to shoulder with President Obama to expand healthcare coverage for millions through the affordable care act–a program that President Trump is bent on destroying. It’s chilling to think about how many more may have died during this pandemic if Trump had succeeded in taking away the health insurance for so many families, including those whose age or health make them more susceptible to the most deadly forms of COVID-19.

Donald Trump has failed as President, and his failure has deadly repercussions. Just like my crew at work does, we need to take care of each other and heal our nation, and we can’t do that with such a divisive, amoral, and reckless President. For each and every one of us, we need to start back on our path to recovery from this pandemic and from this presidency with President Joe Biden as our next president.

William Rosas Agosto lives in Nashua with his wife. He’s a proud member of 32BJ SEIU, a union of cleaners, security officers, and other property service workers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and other states up and down the East Coast.

Newsletter