Ultimately, I argue that by venerating healthcare workers as heroes throughout the pandemic, we have inadvertently been doing them a great disservice. This praise, well-intentioned as it may be, has not helped solve any of the problems that medical professionals have faced during COVID. Furthermore, through its illusory sense of support for our healthcare workers, the hero narrative has arguably lulled the public into complacency: it has led us to think that we are already providing adequate support to our healthcare workers, when in fact there is a great deal more to be done. As scholar Premilla Nadasen writes in her article "Rethinking Care Work: (Dis)affection and the Politics of Caring," we must first and foremost prioritize "protecting the rights and attending to the needs of the most vulnerable as human beings—not because they serve us." In their moment of vulnerability during COVID-19, I propose several ways in which we, as a society, can begin to do this for healthcare workers.

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1. Employers must provide PPE to all healthcare workers. This equipment protects both healthcare workers and their patients, and is the most fundamental necessity for medical professionals working during the pandemic.

2. Employers must compensate all healthcare workers with hazard pay. Instead of merely thanking our "healthcare heroes," we must normalize increasing their pay in return for their high-risk work.

3. Employers must provide thorough and comprehensive training to every healthcare worker asked to treat intensive care patients. This will help assuage feelings of doubt and guilt among medical professionals, ensure that patients are receiving the care they need, and limit hospital liability, as well.

4. Employers and insurance companies must make free, unlimited mental health services and resources available to all healthcare workers both during and after the pandemic, for as long as they need. Although we have not yet seen COVID's long-term effects on workers' mental health, researchers suspect that PTSD and other conditions directly stemming from the trauma they have endured will soon become apparent. Medical professionals will no doubt require extensive support to overcome these challenges after the worst of the pandemic has passed.  

5. Each member of the public must commit to wearing masks, social distancing, and continuing to stay indoors whenever possible. "I’ve been talking with a lot of my colleagues about how the public is saying, ‘Thank you for being on the front lines,’ they’re writing us thank-you notes and sending us pizza," Sarah Anderson, an OB/GYN in Colorado, told TIME. "We don’t need any of that. What we need is for you to stop exposing us." This small action is perhaps the most important thing we can do to reduce our healthcare workers' burden and contribute to stopping the spread of COVID-19 one person at a time.