The U.S Postal Service’s motto says nothing will stop them – “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night.” But postal workers are navigating a new threat: the deadly coronavirus.

Spectrum News spoke to one Brooklyn letter carrier and union leader who knows the danger all too well - and the local Congress members who are trying to make the system safer.

“I’m just trying to get by,” John Cruz said told us. “It’s tough. It’s tough.”

Cruz is a 27-year veteran of the Postal Service and president of his local letter carriers' union, delivering mail each day to the people of Brooklyn no matter what – including in the middle of a pandemic. 

But it was after a visit to a branch where someone tested positive for COVID-19 that he quarantined himself on the advice of his doctor – but it was too late.

“This past Thursday is when I started feeling the symptoms. The scratchy throat, you can’t taste nothing,” Cruz said. “It was more of a back pain where my lungs were at, and I was having problems breathing and I couldn’t lay down for too long.”

Cruz was tested for coronavirus, and he was positive.

“I started crying. I’m 5 foot, 11, 240 pounds. I’m a big boy and us big boys cry, too,” he said. “You know, I just started crying and I was thinking about my kids.”

Cruz believes he caught the virus while on the job and began sounding the alarm that Postal Service workers were in harm’s way – critical workers on the frontline serving a nation staying at home.

And Cruz’s calls for help aren’t for nothing – they’re being heard in the halls of Congress.

Brooklyn Reps. Yvette Clarke, Hakeem Jeffries, and Carolyn Maloney, along with other members of the New York congressional delegation, wrote several letters to the Postmaster General asking for accountability and the need for more protection against the coronavirus.

“These workers are also our neighbors. They’re people who are parts of our family. So any risk that they’re taking becomes a risk to the entire family,” Clarke said. 

“The least that we can do is make sure that they have the N95 masks, the gloves, personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary to ensure that they can do their job safely on behalf of the American people,” Jeffries said.  

“They’re on the frontlines, and there’s very little training and support in that direction, and the sanitation of the Post Office needs to increase due to this threat,” Maloney said. 

Members say more funding for the Postal Service is being pushed in an upcoming stimulus package. That money would go toward helping the Service better protect employees, and improve the resiliency of the system that’s also taking a huge hit to its business and operating revenue.

We reached out to the U.S. Postal Service for comment and in a statement officials told us they’re following federal health experts’ guidance while increasing cleanings, reinforcing safe workplace behavior, expanding telework, and providing more COVID-19 sick leave.

They said they’re distributing millions of masks, gloves, and sanitizing products to its more than 30,000 locations.

Welcome news for letter carriers like John, who hopes more of his colleagues don’t fall ill.

“The key to this job is always, you want to go home the same way you walked in: safe and in one piece.” Cruz said. “That’s all we want to do.”