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A Year Later, It’s Still Impossible to Tell How Many Food Workers Are Contracting COVID-19

Agriculture Farmers Food Health

A Year Later, It’s Still Impossible to Tell How Many Food Workers Are Contracting COVID-19

This story was originally published by the Food and Environment Reporting Network and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For weeks last spring, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, the country was gripped by fear of potential food shortages. As speculation arose about widespread meat shortages, Americans started panic buying. Shoppers worried they would contract the virus from food shipped from countries with high infection rates. These concerns were never borne out. But they distracted from a much more significant crisis underway in the food system: By the time butcher counters were facing an actual meat shortage, scores...

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