Rikers & Roosevelt: The uncontrolled experiment on essential workers (and their wards)

[swag]

https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/12/rikers-and-roosevelt-the-uncontrolled-human-experiment-occurring-with-essential-workers-and-their-wards/

by emptywheel

In the several weeks since much (though not all) of the country has been shut down, an uncontrolled human experiment with the country’s essential workers has been occurring.

I say that because those people still required to work — especially medical care workers, nursing home workers (and their clients), prison guards (and prisoners), cops, meatpackers, grocery store workers, warehouse workers, public transit workers, and sailors and other service members — have all been asked to work with a very limited test and tracking regime in place to limit spread among co-workers, wards, and their communities.

There’s inconsistent public data about how closely the federal government is tracking these communities (they’re obviously tracking the military, and after an initial attempt to hide the numbers, have provided skeleton baseline numbers; they’re reportedly not tracking nursing homes). So what has happened in these populations cannot be described with precision yet. But there is public reporting on how seriously affected each of these groups are — and whether, and when, their employers took appropriate protective measures. Thus far, the anecdotal reports show that some individual institutions have been more successful than others at preventing mass infection, whereas certain kinds of worksites — prisons and ships — will have much less success controlling an outbreak given existing tools.

These professions are where spread is happening even with shutdowns (though some, like meatpackers, are often located in areas more likely to have shut down late or not at all). Thus, amid the debate about when we can reopen the economy, what happened to workers and their wards in these professions provide lessons about what protections have to be in place before any place can open up, how widespread COVID might get amid populations that social distance but don’t stay home, and what pitfalls are likely once we do open up.

Along the way, a lot of people have died.

. . . much more

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick and recommend. Excellent. Thanks

[Wellstone ruled]

2. This is the Time Bomb that just

exploded in Rural America this past week. Having a Relative whom was the Dietitian for two Nursing Homes in Rural Minnesota,his comment was spot on . Everyday you go home,and if there is any Illness's traveling in those places,chances are you are going to carry it back home. Fortunately for him he left that position early last year to be the Executive Chef at a Restaurant only to be laid off.

As he said yesterday,the time bomb has exploded,and by June all hell will break loose.