Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/coronavirus/page/2/)
While complaints increased, overall inspections dramatically decreased, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.
Even before COVID-19, aides caring for elderly and disabled people in nursing homes often were overworked and underpaid, doing everything from changing linens to helping residents eat to physically rotating them to prevent bed sores.
OSHA received its first complaints about meatpacking plants almost a full year ago, on March 17, 2020. At two plants in North Carolina, people were elbow-to-elbow, with no change in operations, according to OSHA data.
A few states with large agricultural populations have, so far, left farmworkers out of their COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated farmers’ feelings of isolation, according to a recent survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation. The percentage who said social isolation affects farmers’ mental health jumped more than 20% in 2020 compared to 2019.
An infected worker allegedly told the plant's manager he was feeling better after his positive test. He told the county health department the opposite.
OSHA and USDA waited until April of last year — more than three months into the pandemic and after a plant shut down because workers fell ill — to plan a response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases at meatpacking plants, according to emails obtained by Public Citizen.
State officials knew little about the secretive industry until the pandemic struck; now they are scrambling to keep mink farmers and their animals safe
Students report a wide variety of experiences after testing positive for COVID-19 on Midwest campuses. Some were held in university facilities where food was scarce; others were placed in hotels with regular meals. Some said their personal contacts were notified; others say no one even asked who they’d come into contact with, if their schools followed up with them at all.
When universities across the U.S. reopened and welcomed tens of thousands of students back to campus this fall, students partied in apartments, at pools and on the lawns of Greek houses — celebrating as if COVID-19 did not exist.
Local public health departments and universities alike received thousands of reports about students at over-packed parties and bars where they could be seen maskless, violating social distancing and gathering size limits. Some schools created ways for complaints to be filed.