The Postal Service helps keep millions of Americans alive and well. Many rely on the mail for delivery of prescriptions and disease testing.Eighty percent of prescriptions filled to veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs are delivered by USPS, according to a recent letter sent to Postmaster Louis DeJoy by a number of concerned US senators, serving more than 300,000 patients.Since restrictions slowed the movement of mail, “we have received many troubling reports from veterans waiting weeks for their prescriptions to arrive due to delays at USPS,” the letter reads. Prescriptions expected to arrive in three to five days are taking weeks.In the general population, 20 percent of US residents over the age of 40 get prescriptions delivered by mail.Mail-order prescriptions are particularly crucial during the pandemic for people with chronic conditions like diabetes or asthma, who are already disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19.A recent brief from the Institute for Policy Studies identifies that 14.5 million people living in rural areas don’t have access to broadband internet, which severely limits their ability to communicate without the mail.https://lnkd.in/gzVFdY6