How federal regulators failed meat plant workers

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

On today’s Post Reports, more than 200 meatpacking workers have died of covid-19. Critics say that federal regulators have endangered employees by failing to respond appropriately. How the pandemic is transforming family practice doctors. And the Big 10 turns a 180.

So far, more than 200 meat packing employees have died of covid-19 in the United States. “We’re talking about problems in more than four hundred meat plants,” investigative reporter Kimberly Kindy says, but “two received fines: one Smithfield plant in South Dakota, one JBS in Colorado … And the fines were very small.”

Small, independent family practices are facing greater hardship as the pandemic wears on, especially in rural areas.. “Family doctors are really sort of the front-line physicians in American health care,” says business of health reporter Chris Rowland. “Their role, although they're the lowest-paid in medicine, is absolutely crucial to the functioning of the health system.”

College football’s Big Ten was the first major conference to postpone its season. On Wednesday, Emily Giambalvo reports, it made a stunning reversal of that decision by announcing the season will resume at the end of October.

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0:00.0	This post reports podcast is sponsored by Facebook.
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0:19.2	From the newsroom of the Washington Post.
0:22.7	Hey, it's Ross Helderman from the Post. How are you?
0:25.7	Hey there, it's Simon from the Post. Hey, it's Dave Farron.
0:28.8	You've got to see it.
0:30.3	This is Post Reports. I'm Martin Powers.
0:35.6	It's Wednesday, September 16th.
0:40.2	Today, the government responds to COVID outbreaks at meat plants.
0:44.6	How the pandemic is hurting family doctors and a big reversal from the Big Ten.
0:50.0	At the beginning of the pandemic, meat plants were one of the biggest hot spots in the nation.
1:00.2	Of course, we had hot spots in nursing homes and jails, but meat plants in particular were a problem.
1:08.4	People are working in very close proximity to one another in an enclosed area for hours and
1:15.2	hours at a time. And in the beginning of the pandemic, they didn't have masks and they didn't have
1:21.3	gloves and they didn't have other protective gear. They weren't doing any social distancing,
1:26.3	not even in like the cafeteria. And that really went on for weeks while cases just spiked.
1:35.9	I'm Kimberly Kindie and I'm an investigative reporter for the National Desk.
1:40.8	And what do we know are the repercussions of that or how many people got sick because of these
1:48.5	practices at meat packing plants? Well, there were a number of people who became sick and ill and died
1:55.3	since March, more than 40,000 meat packing workers have tested positive for coronavirus.
	...

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