I know the last thing people want to hear more about is the socio-economic side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is very important for all of us to not just return things to normal but to also prevent the next pandemic - or at the very least to prevent the next one to be as impactful as the most recent one was. We need to do two things immediately, address the suffering by providing assistance to underserved areas while also preventing future impacts of another pandemic.

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Here Is How We Do That:

• First, we need to address the businesses that have suffered because of the pandemic from mom-and-pop restaurants to family farms, we need to subsidize the losses of Oregon's small businesses. We do constantly do this with large businesses because of their massive lobbying power but it's necessary that we take care of our small businesses. They're the backbone of our economy and we need to assist them in order for them to have a speedy recovery process.

• Second, we need to revamp our unemployment system as soon as possible. During the start of the pandemic, a lot of people were laid off and the safety net we had in place for this exact scenario did not work. That's because even though we have audited the Oregon Employment Department back in 2012 & 2015 we still had a catastrophic failure to pay jobless claims during the early months of the pandemic.

• Third, we should look into providing Oregonians their own stimulus check. With other nations subsidizing wages throughout the pandemic the United States only gave out 3 checks and called it even. The problem is for most people those checks couldn't even cover one month's expenses let alone four or five. While nothing can be done for what has already transpired, a direct cash infusion to the families who are still recovering from their lives being uprooted could advance the recovery process in the hardest-hit communities here in Oregon.