Campaigning During a Pandemic: Rules of the Road for COVID-19

My name is Robbie Goldstein and I am a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital specializing in infectious diseases. I am also a candidate for Congress in the 8th District of Massachusetts.  

I have spent the past few weeks in the hospital responding to this crisis, and as a physician trained in responding to public health threats, I wanted to share the procedures our team has put in place to ensure we are continuing to engage communities while keeping everyone as safe as possible. 

First of all, we should all acknowledge that this is an unprecedented time. Never before have we faced a public health threat like COVID-19 at a time when we are so connected, and never before have any of us attempted to continue living life as normally as possible while working to maintain social distancing and ever-changing guidance from the local, state and federal public health agencies. 

Campaigning is, by definition, based on personal connection - reaching out to voters individually, shaking hands, sharing stories, and coming together to talk about our common challenges and identifying solutions. 

While we obviously have to change how we go about bringing folks together, what remains the same is our reason for connecting. We launched our campaign in November of last year to think bigger and do better for our communities. 

To guarantee access to paid leave. To guarantee healthcare for all. To treat every person with dignity and respect. 

All of these priorities have become even more urgent in the face of a pandemic that is threatening the safety and security of people who, for too long, have been marginalized.

Over the past few weeks, our campaign has done everything we can to adapt to the changing reality. Informed by my experience as an Infectious Disease physician and my training in public health, we’ve pulled together “Rules of the Road” for campaigns to guide our own decision-making, and hopefully it helps you too. 

  1. Catch us online, not at your door. 

We’ve all heard a lot about social distancing in the past couple of weeks. Avoiding public gatherings, staying at home and limiting in-person contact is our best chance of stopping the spread of the virus by “flattening the curve” of new infections. It is our best chance to avoid overwhelming our hospitals. 

The average number of people 1 person with COVID-19 infects is 3. Knocking on doors risks a rapid expansion of the number of contacts and possible infections. Text banking, phone banking, and reaching out through social media are safe ways of reaching potential voters and sharing the campaign’s message.

To volunteer to text or call voters from the comfort of your couch, please click here: http://bit.ly/VolForRobbie. 

For the immediate future, all of our events and volunteer activities will be held via Zoom, Google Hangout, or over the phone. If you’d like to host a Virtual Meet & Greet, please send us an email at team@robbieforchange.com!

  1. Work from home!*

Team Robbie is officially on work-from-home duty. We are operating our daily team meeting via a Google Hangout, and keeping in touch throughout the day with phone calls, on email, through Slack and via FaceTime. 

It is imperative that we limit in-person contacts as much as possible to avoid transmission. If you are volunteering or working on another campaign, we urge you to close your offices to the public and to move public events online.

*It is a privilege to be able to work remotely. For small business owners and those who work in hospitality, retail, and human services, working from home isn’t an option. We need investment at the federal level to protect workers and small businesses, and we need it now. 

  1. Lead by Example & Protect Your Team

Campaign staff work hard and deserve to earn a living wage and receive the benefits, like paid time off and earned sick time. For campaign staff that get sick or have to care for a sick family member, it is our responsibility as employers to provide them security.

If your campaign doesn’t yet have a written paid time off policy, we urge you to adopt one today. Ours is simple: all employees of the campaign earn two weeks of paid time off per year. 

  1. What about meetings with activists and stakeholders? Are one-on-one interactions okay?

The best thing we can all do to “flatten the curve” and reduce new infections is to transition to virtual connections. Even for those who are young and otherwise healthy, COVID-19 can have devastating complications. Call time can be staffed remotely, and new connections can be made via FaceTime, Google Hangout, Zoom, or other remote-meeting technology. Press interviews can be shifted to the virtual realm using the same remote-meeting strategies.  

Robbie goes live every night on Facebook and Instagram. Follow him to stay up-to-date on the campaign.

  1. We are going to get through this. 

This is an unprecedented time, and many are rightfully fearful: for their health and that of their family, for their livelihoods, for the future. As with any threat or crisis, there is plenty of misinformation online. We should all be working to promote facts about COVID-19 and direct people to the most helpful resources possible. We should all be directing folks to www.cdc.gov for updates.

The most important thing we can remember, for ourselves and others, is that we will get through this. 

It will most likely get harder before it gets better. But if we all do our part to reduce the spread of infection and promote true best practices like frequent hand washing and avoiding in-person contacts with people you don’t live with, we can “flatten the curve” and prevent the worst. 

Look out for each other. And, stay safe.

Robbie