As Americans head to the polls, COVID-19's long shadow looms
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[November 03, 2020]
By Nick Brown and Ernest Scheyder
(Reuters) - For many Americans, this is the
coronavirus election.
The pandemic has killed about 230,000 people in the country and
destroyed millions of jobs, defining the last year of Donald Trump's
presidency and becoming a rallying cry for his Democratic opponent, Joe
Biden.
Here are stories from a cross-section of Americans - voters and
officials - for whom COVID-19 is the driving force in Tuesday's
election. Their stories underscore why the disease casts a long shadow
over the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
SONIKA RANDEV, 36, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Dr. Sonika Randev has had a dark year. In March, when she was a medical
resident at New York's Metropolitan Hospital, Randev contracted
COVID-19, spending three weeks battling fever, brain fog, body aches, a
loss of taste and smell and what she termed a "bone-chilling cold."
Afterward, figuring she was immune to the coronavirus, Randev
volunteered to care for the hospital's sickest COVID patients, watching
many die.
"My unit became an end-of-life unit," she said. "We were basically
waiting for patients to pass away or go to hospice."
Melancholy quickly set in.
New York's nightly ritual - in which people clapped and cheered for
healthcare workers from their windows - stopped buoying Randev's
spirits. She found herself shutting her windows to the sound, which only
reminded her of "the sea of misery" the city had become. When friends
and colleagues took to drowning their sorrows, Randev found drinking
only made her feel worse, so she stopped.
She felt powerless.
Now, as she gets back on her feet, she said she is trying to take some
of that power back - by voting for Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
"Being able to go to the polls and finally exert some control just by
casting a vote, I think that's something powerful," Randev said.
Recalling how doctors were forced to reuse the same masks and gowns for
days, Randev said Trump should have done more to boost supply of
protective gear. She also feels Trump unfairly left state governments to
fight the pandemic on their own, then "turned around and criticized"
those who imposed strict lockdowns.
In a statement to Reuters in October, a Trump campaign spokeswoman said
the president has faced the pandemic "head on," citing his restrictions
on travel from China, adding that "he will not stop until we’ve beaten
the coronavirus."
But Randev does not believe Trump would do any better in a second term.
"He is who he is," she said. "He's never going to change."
CHRIS HOLLINS, 34, HOUSTON, TEXAS
It has been less than six months since Chris Hollins was thrust into the
job of running elections in Harris County, Texas - the largest county in
a historically conservative state that Biden has a chance of flipping.
Already, the new county clerk has battled Texas' Republican governor and
attorney general on voting rights access, underscoring the bitter battle
for votes in the second-largest U.S. state.
Hollins launched drive-through voting and kept some early-voting
locations open 24/7, largely for the convenience of the county's large
numbers of medical and oil industry workers, who often work odd hours.
A Republican state representative sued Hollins for the county's use of
drive-through voting in both the Texas Supreme Court, which rejected the
suit on Sunday, and in federal court, where a judge on Monday ruled
against it as well.
Hollins opposed the governor's order limiting counties to one drop-off
location for absentee ballots.
As a public appointee, Hollins cannot publicly endorse a candidate,
though he is a Democrat.
Prodded partly by the COVID-19 pandemic, county commissioners boosted
the election budget seven fold from 2016 levels to $27.7 million.
Hollins used that money to triple the county's early-voting locations to
120.
Plastic coverings that Hollins' office bought for voters' fingers - the
county uses touchscreen voting terminals - have gone viral on social
media, with some playfully describing them as "finger condoms."
Hollins said his job is "to make sure every voter in Harris County has
an opportunity to cast their ballots and can do so safely."
He and the county have been largely been successful: By Oct. 29, more
county voters had cast early ballots than in the entire 2016 election.
GLORIA "LEE" SNOVER, 52, BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA
Her father died of it. Her mother spent eight days in the ICU; her
husband, 17 days. Five others in her family contracted it, including
herself. For Lee Snover, COVID-19 was more than a news story. It was a
family crisis.
Still, Snover goes to the polls more determined than ever to reelect
Trump. The chair of the Republican Committee of Northampton County,
Pennsylvania - a crucial swing district Trump won in 2016 - said that
despite widespread criticism of the president's handling of the disease,
it never occurred to her to blame him for the pandemic that ravaged her
family's health and hamstrung its construction business.
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Sonika Randev, who recently completed a physical medicine &
rehabilitation residency at Metropolitan Hospital Center in
Manhattan, poses for a portrait in the Manhattan borough of New York
City, U.S., November 1, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Snover hit emotional rock-bottom the day of her father's funeral in
April, when, battling her own mild COVID diagnosis, she was forced
to stay home. The same day, her husband entered the hospital with
worsening symptoms. Her mother would soon join. The virus would
ensnare eight family members total.
COVID has infected 5,700 Northampton residents and killed 315,
according to Pennsylvania Department of Health data. That is 103
deaths per 100,000 residents, well above the U.S. average.
Snover opposes economic shutdowns, equating them to letting the
virus win, even though doctors have said social distancing is the
best way to beat COVID. "We see life as you gotta survive, you gotta
win. We're not victims. When something hits us, we beat it back and
win," she said.
With Trump behind in opinion polls, Snover says her last vote as a
party official carries special weight.
"All this about women's rights, and 'Women are so mighty,' but I
look at them on Facebook and all they talk about is fear," she said.
"Putting my finger on that machine button and casting that ballot --
that's a victory against COVID."
GARY SIMS, 52, RALEIGH, North Carolina
COVID-19 has caused Gary Sims to lose sleep, weight and time with
his daughters - and he hasn't even had the disease.
As director of elections for Wake County, North Carolina, Sims must
stage a vote in the most populous county of a crucial battleground
state, in the midst of a public health nightmare. The stress is
eating him alive, he said.
From online poll worker training to mailing out hundreds of
thousands of absentee ballots, "everything has been unprecedented,"
Sims said.
He has had to reconfigure his agency's 76,000-square-foot
headquarters so that it can process five times its usual haul of
mail ballots while keeping workers much farther apart than normal.
He has seen his two grown daughters just once this year, even though
they live close by - for their own protection, he said, since he
can't work from home and is more exposed to the virus.
No stranger to pressure, the U.S. military veteran saw combat in two
foreign conflicts. He worries political tensions could lead to
confrontation, or that poll workers - many of whom are first-timers
this year - could grow overwhelmed by the added burdens of enforcing
social distancing and contending with a high turnout of partisan
poll observers.
Sims' blood pressure has spiked. Struggling to stomach solid foods,
he's subsisted mostly on protein shakes. He has lost 40 pounds (18
kg) in two months. "Did I need to lose the weight?" he said. "Yeah.
Did I plan to lose it like that? No."
As an official in charge of fair elections, Sims cannot reveal his
own voting plans, but said he is an independent who votes with his
daughters in mind.
"They're getting their future started," he said. "So my vote is for
what's best for them."
ISRAEL SUAREZ, 76, FORT MYERS, FLORIDA
Israel Suarez nearly died after he contracted COVID-19 in August,
but he did not let that stop him from voting.
Suarez spent 10 days in a Florida hospital and said he was convinced
he was going to die. After the ordeal, the lifelong Republican and
native of Puerto Rico voted early in October, an act he called a
civic duty.
"The coronavirus shouldn't stop anyone from exercising their moral
and social responsibility to vote," said Suarez, who founded the
Nations Association Charities in Fort Myers, Florida, a nonprofit
that runs youth groups and other community outreach programs.
Until now, Suarez has affiliated with Republican causes and
politics. But this year, he's supporting Biden.
"I'm so fed up with this man, Mr. Trump, because I almost died,"
Suarez said. "I almost lost my life because of him."
Suarez said Trump has divided and confused the country by failing to
lead it successfully through the pandemic.
Suarez added that he persuaded his wife and daughter to vote for
Biden, too. Biden "is a moral man," Suarez said, "no matter what
people think of him."
(Reporting by Nick Brown and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Ross Colvin
and Cynthia Osterman)
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