Operation Warp Speed; Essential Workers Fight For Benefits
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Today is International Workers Day, and this year workers at Amazon, Walmart and Target are using the occasion to organize mass protests. They say their companies are not doing enough to protect and compensate them, even as the nation hails them as "essential."
Today is also historically known as National College Decision Day for college-bound high school seniors. But that's changed this year too. Many colleges have postponed their decision deadlines to June 1. And as the pandemic continues to cause students' personal circumstances to change, some are reconsidering attending a four-year college full time at all.
In New York City, a funeral director says knowing that his team is performing a service for their community helps him get through long and stressful days.
Plus, some happy news: NPR producer Emma Talkoff's twin sister and her now-husband got married in their apartment last weekend. Talkoff shares what it was like for her family to witness the joyful moment via Zoom.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Operation warp speed. That is what the Trump administration is calling the effort to develop a vaccine fast. |
| 0:07.7 | If it's successful, hundreds of millions of doses could be available by early next year. |
| 0:13.2 | On NBC's Today Show, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, |
| 0:16.4 | it's possible. |
| 0:17.6 | We're going to start ramping up production with the companies involved. |
| 0:21.3 | And you do that at risk. In other words, you don't wait until you get an answer before you start manufacturing. |
| 0:27.6 | You at risk proactively start making it assuming it's going to work. |
| 0:33.4 | Coming up weddings, funerals, and graduations in the time of a pandemic, |
| 0:38.1 | and how essential workers are making the case that they deserve more. |
| 0:42.6 | This is coronavirus daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Friday, May 1st. |
| 0:51.6 | All over the country, states are beginning to allow some businesses to open back up. |
| 0:56.8 | But not everyone has been home these nearly seven weeks. |
| 1:00.4 | It's not just doctors and nurses who are considered essential. |
| 1:04.4 | Workers in warehouses and grocery stores, delivery drivers, and fast food employees, |
| 1:08.7 | gig workers too, they have all been working this whole time. |
| 1:13.2 | Many have gotten sick from COVID-19. Some have died. |
| 1:16.9 | They're being called heroes, but many people say their pay, benefits, and protections are not heroic. |
| 1:23.6 | We are the same people that they didn't think we were worth $15 an hour, |
| 1:28.2 | but now realize that we are worth way more than that. |
| 1:31.2 | That Cynthia Murray, she works at a Walmart in Maryland. |
| 1:34.3 | They say we have protected sick time. I'm a 19-year associate. |
| 1:38.4 | I have to work more than a week in order to get one hour of sick time. |
... |
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