Two months ago today, I began mapping Covid-19 in the food system. Since then, the number of cases has grown steadily to over 32,000. Sadly, there is little sign that this trend is slowing.

Here’s a thread with more from my latest analysis for @FERNnews: https://thefern.org/2020/06/covid-19-shows-no-sign-of-slowing-among-food-system-workers/

Cases among meatpacking, food processing, and farmworkers are all still rising. These figures are cumulative, meaning good news would look like a significant plateau on this trend line. We’re not seeing that.

The meatpacking sector, as many have reported, has had the worst and most outbreaks. But the number of farms with outbreaks is also rising as the growing season continues.

North Carolina has had the highest number of outbreaks (which was true when I did this analysis a month ago, too). You can find state breakdowns by sector in the full story ( https://thefern.org/2020/06/covid-19-shows-no-sign-of-slowing-among-food-system-workers/).

This table shows outbreaks by state, and highlights seven states — California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington — that have had outbreaks in all three major food and farm sectors.

Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest meatpacker, is way ahead in number of workers who have contracted Covid-19. It has has nearly three times as many cases as JBS, the nation’s second-largest meatpacker. Over 8,000 Tyson meatpacking workers have gotten sick.

Food sector workers are disproportionately low-income, people of color, and immigrants. It’s clear from the data that many of these vulnerable workers are not being adequately protected by their employers or regulators. Speaking of, where’s OSHA? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/opinion/coronavirus-osha-work-safety.html