“Thousands of frontline workers may have survived the Covid-19 pandemic if the US regulatory system had better protected them, report the authors of an analysis published yesterday in BMJ,” Mary Van Beusekom writes over at CIDRAP. “The study is the first in a series that discusses the lessons learned from Covid-19 and the steps needed to avert deaths in the next pandemic and improve public health. Frontline workers are those who couldn’t work from home and thus were at higher risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Black and Hispanic workers and immigrants make up high proportions of ‘essential’ workers, or those in healthcare, meatpacking plants, agricultural production, and public transportation. ‘Federal policies on workplace exposure were developed to protect the supply chain of food or other vital products, or to prevent staff shortages at healthcare facilities, rather than to protect frontline workers from virus exposure,’ wrote the George Washington University–led study authors. ‘Some employers, with the support (and encouragement) of elected officials, put production and profits ahead of worker safety and health.’ The study authors said social, legal, and economic provisions for low-wage workers were weak even before the pandemic, noting that the United States is one of only six countries without a national paid sick-leave policy and the only country in the 37-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development without a national health insurance program.” Mary van Beusekom, “U.S. government failure to protect frontline workers from COVID led to thousands of deaths, scientists say,” CIDRAP.
