Through Zoom trainings and virtual lobbying days, people who have lost loved ones or their own health to the coronavirus are trying to influence federal policy.

Pamela Addison is, in her own words, “one of the shyest people in this world.” Certainly not the sort of person who would submit an op-ed to a newspaper, or start a support group for strangers, or ask a United States senator to vote for $1.9 trillion legislation.

No one is more surprised than her that, in the past five months, she has done all of those things.

Her husband, Martin Addison, a 44-year-old health care worker in New Jersey, died from the coronavirus on April 29 after a month of illness. The last time she saw him was when he was loaded into an ambulance. At 37, Ms. Addison was left to care for a 2-year-old daughter and an infant son, and to make ends meet on her own.

Read More: The New York Times (paywall)