Study: Food jobs are the pandemic’s deadliest work
Which workers are at the greatest risk of dying from Covid-19? Cooks, farm workers, bakers, and other essential food workers, according to a new University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) study. While all Californians between 18 and 65 years old experienced a 22 percent increase in deaths during the pandemic, food and agriculture laborers had a 39 percent increase, far ahead of those in working in other high-risk fields like transportation and manufacturing. Because of these laborers’ high risk, the study authors suggest those employees get moved up in line for vaccinations. “While we pay a lot of lip service to essential workers, when you see the actual occupations that rise to the top of the list as being at much more risk and associated with death, it screams out to you who’s really at risk,” a UCSF epidemiologist told the San Francisco Chronicle.
