The COVID-19 pandemic has, of course, brought increased attention to the mental health of workers in our healthcare system. And we have asked so much of you over the course of these last two-plus years. Some of you held the hands of those who were dying on behalf of their loved ones. All of you worked around the clock long before we understood how COVID-19 spread or what it did to the body. And before you were even vaccinated or had protective equipment — the kind you needed — you were still here doing this work around the clock. You spent hour after hour, many in a windowless room, unable to speak about how you were feeling or only being able to speak with a small group who truly could understand what you were going through. But you did it nonetheless. So there is an urgent need that we have, I believe, to address all of this and to address, of course, what has resulted: the stress, the burnout, the mental health challenges that you experienced most recently because of the pandemic.
Vice President of the United States from 2021 to 2025
Kamala Devi Harris /ˈkɑːmələ/ (born 20 October 1964) is an American politician and attorney currently serving as the 49th Vice President of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as a US senator for California from 2017 to 2021, and as California's Attorney General from 2011 to 2017. Harris took office as vice president concurrent with the inauguration of Joe Biden as president in January 2021. She was the Democrats' nominee for president in 2024.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
From Wikidata (CC0)
My daily challenge to myself is to be part of the solution, to be a joyful warrior in the battle to come. My challenge to you is to join that effort. To stand up for our ideals and our values. Let's not throw up our hands when it's time to roll up our sleeves. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Years from now, our children and our grandchildren will look up and lock eyes with us. They will ask us where we were when the stakes were so high. They will ask us what it was like. I don't want us to just tell them how we felt. I want us to tell them what we did.
Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
"Drawing on the words of Coretta Scott King, I reminded the audience that freedom must be fought for and won by every generation. "It is the very nature of this fight for civil rights and justice and equality that whatever gains we make, they will not be permanent. So we must be vigilant, " I said."
We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and childcare for our children. America, we are not going back.