Newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has an opportunity to become the Biden administration’s biggest supporter for quickly and safely vaccinating meat workers against COVID-19. This would support the administration’s ambitious vaccination targets and demonstrate real commitment to the long-term safety of the 500,000 hardworking men and women who keep food on tables and our farm economy working.
Meat facilities are uniquely equipped and ready now to deliver vaccines efficiently to our diverse workforce. Meat facilities are also often located in rural communities where access to healthcare can be a challenge. Vaccinating front-line meat and poultry workers is the right thing to do and would rapidly advance President Biden’s national goal to “protect those most at risk and advance equity, including across racial, ethnic and rural/urban lines.”
Recent news that vaccines can be stored at higher temperatures than previously believed is also a potential game changer. Meat companies had already offered the use of ultracold blast freezers to aid vaccine distribution. If the administration approves storing vaccines at higher temperatures, many more facilities will be able to offer cold-storage capacity to help store and administer vaccines safely and quickly.
Federal and state authorities, unions, civil rights leaders, and employers agree and the North American Meat Institute has advocated for months that front-line meat and poultry workers should be among the first vaccinated. Yet, so far, we are measuring vaccinations for these dedicated workers in only the hundreds, not the hundreds of thousands.
Meat facilities have succeeded in dramatically reducing risks to workers despite virtually uncontrolled community spread across the United States. Due to the rapid implementation of comprehensive and multilayered COVID-19 protections, average new daily case rates for meat and poultry workers are now more than 80% lower than rates in the general population. We have reduced the average new daily case rate for meat and poultry workers by 95% since the May 2020 peak.
The effectiveness of measures implemented in meatpacking facilities since the pandemic’s earliest stages has been confirmed in recent research. A study published last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal found that the combination of universal masking and physical barriers significantly reduced transmission in 62% of facilities studied.
Earlier research published by the Lancet medical journal in June 2020 found that physical distancing of 3 feet and using face masks each reduce the risk of transmission by about 80% and using eye protection reduces the risk of transmission by about 65%. These measures and more were implemented in meat and poultry facilities early on, even while public health guidance was focused more on sanitation than person-to-person transmission.
As Vilsack and the Biden administration race against the clock and new COVID-19 variants, vaccinating front-line meat and poultry workers must be given the highest possible priority.
Julie Anna Potts is president and CEO of the North American Meat Institute, whose members process the vast majority of U.S. beef, pork, lamb, and poultry, as well as manufacture the equipment and ingredients needed to produce meat and poultry products.
