Health-care workers don’t need Blue Angels. They need green money. | Solomon Jones

As I write this, I am trying to process the death of a high school classmate who just died from COVID-19. I am trying to process the fears of my neighbors who work in health-care environments where patients are dying by the dozens. But more than that, I am trying to understand why President Donald Trump would send warplanes to fly over our city to pay tribute to the medical workers who are on the front lines of the fight against this deadly disease.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to this than others, since the black community has been especially hard hit by COVID-19, a disease that steals life by taking one’s breath away. But I am stunned that while health-care workers don’t have the personal protective equipment (PPE) they need to safely work in highly contagious environments, President Trump would send warplanes rather than medical supplies.

And make no mistake: The Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds fly warplanes. Perhaps at another time that would be a fitting tribute to American ingenuity and fight. Maybe in another place, the resources necessary to fly those planes would be well-spent. But let me be clear: Our health-care workers need PPE, more testing kits, and ventilators for their patients. They need every resource available to help them save lives in our community. They need a president who will use his power to supply these things.

An air show does none of that, and it breaks my heart that the president would OK such a thing while our health-care workers walk into environments where they don’t have enough masks or gloves to protect themselves from this virus.

» READ MORE: Check out a photo gallery of the flyover

The Defense Department, in justifying the decision to fly warplanes over our city during a pandemic, released a statement saying the flight would count toward the pilots’ normal training activity, and would not cost the taxpayers anything extra.

Perhaps that’s true. However, if the health-care workers were really a concern, the president, along with the admirals and generals in charge of this military exercise, would take the training money and use it to give our health-care workers everything they need.

Clearly, the health-care workers are not a priority. And at a time like this, prioritizing the optics of military might over the clear needs of the people who are saving our lives is sheer lunacy.

We’ve had more than a million confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. so far, and more than 60,000 Americans have died.

Philadelphia, like all places with significant black populations, has suffered badly. Black folks, it seems, are dying faster because of structural racism that makes us less likely to have primary care physicians, less likely to have health insurance, more likely to have underlying health conditions, and less likely to get tested for the virus.

Things are so bad in Philly that the city will probably be the last part of the state to reopen, according to Gov. Tom Wolf’s three-phased plan. But this isn’t just a black issue. This is about all of us, because the president, rather than dealing with the gravity of the moment, has engaged in utter foolishness.

That’s why we can’t listen to the president when he says to inject disinfectant as a cure. We have to take this seriously. That means wear your mask. It means stay in if possible. It means protect yourself from this virus because the government isn’t doing enough.

Military jets are nice, but we don’t have money for that. Not when more than 500 people in Philly have died from this virus. Not when we don’t have enough tests to find out how many people have it. Not when health-care workers don’t have enough gear to protect themselves while treating patients.

Bottom line? If we really want to honor health-care workers, we need to give them whatever they ask for in this moment. And in my view, they don’t need Blue Angels. They need green money.

» HELP US REPORT: Are you a health-care worker, medical provider, government worker, patient, frontline worker, or other expert? We want to hear from you.