Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/covid-19-2/)
An Office of Inspector General report released Tuesday concluded the two agencies could have done more to ensure the safety of meatpacking plant workers.
The analysis supports what many meatpacking workers and advocates suspected during the early months of the pandemic — working shoulder-to-shoulder coupled with high line speeds contributed to the virus’ spread.
Since the end of July, the number of weekly new infections has nearly doubled. Deaths have climbed by 140%.
Boosting COVID-19 vaccination rates in rural America is now less a problem of access and more an issue of trust.
Since close to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has tracked complaints it's received about the virus by industry. And through May of this year, agriculture — think crop farming, cattle ranching and the like — has had relatively few complaints.
Some meatpacking plant workers found themselves at the intersection of two of the riskiest settings during the pandemic: correctional facilities and meatpacking plants.
All through 2020, Big Meat and the Trump White House abused immigrants and low-income people working at the nation's slaughterhouses, all but physically forcing them to work in a cauldron pot of coronavirus. The White House named meat packers essential workers while Big Meat failed to do enough to protect its on-line employees from COVID-19. Predictably, avoidable illness and death followed. Now comes litigation.
Many workers compensation claims have been denied throughout the pandemic. But the court ruled the JBS employee was infected with COVID-19 at the plant and should be compensated for lost wages after he fell ill.
The hospital's decades-long reputation for aggressively billing patients has resurfaced anew during the pandemic.
Smithfield Foods has refused to say how many employees have fallen ill at its Milan, Missouri, plant. But OSHA records say at least two workers died and possibly as many as 300 had COVID-19 or had come into contact with someone who did.