Nearly 90 percent of Covid-19 cases at meat plants were non-white workers
More evidence of Covid-19’s disproportionate impact on communities of color has started showing its ugly face at meat processing plants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 17,358 cases of coronavirus among 264 meat and poultry processing plants with 91 recorded deaths, The Hill reports. Race and ethnicity information was only reported for about half of these more than 17,000 cases, but of those reported, 87 percent were people of color. Even more concerning, this figure was drawn from under-reported numbers: Less than half of the states actually reported their numbers to the CDC. Of those recorded, Black workers made up nearly a fifth and Hispanic workers more than half the infected populations. This highlights the extreme level of vulnerability minorities face, in professions that already have higher infection rates than the general population.
