MCD Inc.
November 6, 2020
Water is PPE [Personal Protective Equipment]
"Pure water is the world's first and foremost medicine." - Slovakian proverb
How can you avoid COVID-19, when you lack safe water with which to clean your hands or surfaces? Communities around the world are seriously grappling with this question as the COVID-19 pandemic imperils global water supplies and nurtures a growing humanitarian crisis in populations who lack consistent access to water as well as sanitation.
Concerned with this tangential crisis, MCD is partnering with other leading organizations from the water sector such as ROCKBlue, the American Water Works Association (AWWA), Global Water 2020, and Water.org, to raise awareness about this issue and advocate for additional resources for water supply in a new "Water is PPE" campaign.
The strategy behind “Water is PPE” is to spotlight the importance of water supply in the fight against COVID-19. The campaign seeks to ensure that people residing in lower income countries have the water needed to wash their hands regularly, and that health facilities and schools have water to clean and disinfect their premises and to ensure that their staff and patients/students can wash their hands regularly. The campaign focuses particular attention on the critical role that public water service providers (WSPs), health facilities and schools play in responding to and mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Together WSP’s, health facilities and schools can play a major role in flattening viral curves. “Protecting and expanding water services is a critical part of the support needed for the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19,” MCD CEO Chris Schwabe said, and therefore “resources need to be allocated not just to sustain water supply but to expand it to areas with inadequate supply like health facilities and schools."
Before the pandemic, unfortunately, WSPs were already beset with struggles that left about 35% of the global population without reliable access to clean water. In fact, according to Global Water 2020’s John Oldfield, about “1-in-4 health care facilities across the globe lack basic water services" and "1-in-5 health care facilities across the globe lack sanitation services.” Now as the virus’ spread increases demand, disrupts supply chains, and decreases WSP plant productivity, the number of those without reliable access to clean water is likely to skyrocket.
The “Water is PPE” campaign not only raises awareness about this growing humanitarian crisis, but also offers an array of solutions. Aid agencies, foundations, and development-finance institutions, ROCKBlue founder Peter Macy suggests, can secure “the funds and facilities for water service providers.” Governments, Macy adds, can “quickly reprogram budgets and/or secure loans so emergency water funds are made available to water service providers,” while regulators can “temporarily modify regulations to enable those water providers to function and survive.” Other solutions the “Water is PPE” campaign proposes include:
Peter Macy during his video public service announcement about the 'Water is PPE' campaign