Grocery store workers have been at the forefront for a year, but are struggling to get the Covid vaccine

Grocery store workers have been at the forefront for a year, but are struggling to get the Covid vaccine

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But a vaccine that once offered these essential workers hope for their safety remains elusive for most. Although the coronavirus risks are high and new variants of the virus are spreading, most of the more than 2.4 million low-wage grocery workers in this country have not yet been eligible for the vaccine. The guidelines on vaccine admissions continue to evolve, leaving these front-line workers uncertain as to when they may receive the vaccine. Some workers say they are let down because they do not enjoy the vaccine priority and that they get more exposure to Covid-19 at work for months without the best protection against the virus.

This is the reality faced by Eric Nelson, who is unable to work from home despite the virus raging around him and a heart condition that could put him at greater risk of experiencing severe symptoms if he contracted the virus. opdoen.

The 49-year-old Kroger worker in Cincinnati needs the $ 16 an hour he earns in the store, and selects customers’ online grocery orders for pickup and delivery to pay rent and support his two children. He was looking for work at call centers that would allow him to work remotely during the pandemic, but came up empty-handed.

Nelson comes into contact with thousands of people in the supermarket every week. Despite Kroger’s policy that customers should wear masks, he said some buyers walk around without a mask or wear it under their nose or mouth, which reduces its effectiveness. Nelson often works weekends, which are the busiest times at work when customers do not have a job and buy food for the week.

“There are so many people in the store,” said the 11-year-old Kroger veteran and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. “You just do not know who has what or who has encountered it. You just do not know.”

Sometimes his store requires him to work compulsory overtime if extra orders need to be filled out, which increases his exposure to customers. Other times, employees show up sick, he said, because they can not afford to miss work. A Kroger spokesman said in an email that the company offers paid sick leave to workers. The company said it also pays up to two weeks for workers diagnosed with Covid-19; workers who are referred by a medical provider is placed under mandatory quarantine; and workers. practice self-isolation for Covid-19 symptoms.)

“I’m really worried,” he said. “If I catch the virus, it will take me a while to iron out if it does not kill me.”

The arrival of the vaccine provides a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for Nelson, but he cannot receive it in Ohio. Each state sets up its own vaccine-free factions, and after vaccinating health workers and staff and residents in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, Ohio has given priority to vaccinating people over 65; people with severe congenital, developmental or early cognitive medical conditions; and teachers. The state has not announced a timetable for when grocery workers, transport workers, first responders, workers at essential retailers or other frontline workers will be vaccinated.
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Nelson is frustrated that he and his Kroger associates were not left with the initial vaccine priority groups. He worries that the virus would spread like wildfire at the store if he or an employee got it, potentially endangering the community’s access to food.

‘You have to think of the groceries [workers] also, “Nelson said.” You do not want them to be sick while putting up shelves. It would spread quickly. ‘

The Kroger spokesman said the company had invested more than $ 1.5 billion in in-store safety measures and extra compensation for workers during the pandemic.

“Kroger continues to plead for federal, state and elected officials to prioritize leading grocery workers to receive the vaccine,” the spokesman added.

High exposure works

The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents more than 1.3 million workers in the grocery and food industry, says at least 137 grocery workers have died from Covid-19 and more than 30,100 have been infected or exposed to the virus.

Grocery workers have “high exposure, high contact and if infected, they can become super-distributors,” said Justin Yang, assistant professor of medicine at the Boston School of Medicine.

Yang is working on a study, published in October in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which found that 20% of the 104 grocery workers tested for Covid-19 in an unknown grocery store in Boston in May were active Covid-19 cases, although most do not show symptoms. This was a significantly higher infection rate than was seen in the surrounding communities, the researchers found. Workers dealing with customers in the store were five times more likely to test positive for Covid-19 than colleagues in other positions.

But despite the risks, grocery workers in 37 countries could not be vaccinated, according to the union.

In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued initial guidelines recommending that the vaccine be offered in the second phase of deployment – to health workers and residents and staff in long-term care facilities – to people over 75 and essential workers in the front line. outside health care. But in January, the federal government shifted its recommendations on implementation and encouraged states to put older people and people with high-risk medical conditions on the vaccine’s priority list.

States followed suit, says Jennifer Tolbert, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Many states have deviated from the focus on essential workers at the front and more on older adults,” she said. “By prioritizing older adults over essential workers, it further pushes people at greater risk of being exposed to their work down.”

There is limited supply of the vaccine and ‘unfortunately we can not all vaccinate’, she said. States have been forced to ‘compromise’ on who to prioritize, she said, focusing on vaccinating older adults and people with certain underlying medical conditions, who are at greater risk of developing a serious illness due to the to experience virus or death if they contract it.
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“These decisions in no way alter the fact that grocery workers and other frontline employees are at greater risk of being exposed to Covid-19,” she said. As more vaccine becomes available, she predicts that the allocation of grocery workers will increase.

Yet many grocery workers will likely have to work for months without access to a vaccine in their stores. Grocery and pharmacy chains such as Kroger (KR), Walmart (WMT), CVS (CVS) and Walgreens (WBA) list the vaccine at some of their stores eligible customers. And some chains, such as Trader Joe’s, Kroger and Target, have announced that they will offer to give workers paid time to be vaccinated. But most of their workers are not yet able to take advantage of this policy.

Both unions and the trade group representing grocery stores say workers must now move into the vaccine line.

Grocery workers “must be given priority for the [Covid] vaccine “, as the CDC first recommended, said Leslie Sarsin, executive director of FMI, the food industry association, in an email.” To do otherwise ignores the critical role these individuals play in keeping the country fed. “

‘Every day scary’

Sarah Demerrit, 58, who works shifts at a Safeway in Lake Oswego, Oregon, cleaning the store overnight, said that although she does not deal with customers, she is concerned that one of her co-workers can be infected.

“I do not feel safe at all,” she said. Her co-workers become “very complacent” and do not always maintain social distance when they are in the store, she said. ‘People [are] just used to it. “(Christine Wilcox, a spokeswoman for Albertsons, which owns Safeway, says safety is the top priority and he has ‘very clear reminders for social distance’ in stores, other than PPE, cleaning protocols, Covid-19 testing and other measures for workers and customers. to protect.)

Demerrit would be ‘first’ to get the vaccine, but Oregon did not qualify grocery workers.
Kelli, an online order filler and cashier in her mid-30s at Sprouts Farmers Market in Texas, who spoke about the condition that she be withheld from this article because she is not authorized to speak to the media, said it was ‘heartbreaking’ grocery workers like her could not receive the vaccine in the state. Texas has given preference to vaccinating people over 65 and people over 16 with health conditions to health workers. A spokesman for Sprouts said in an email that the company is “coordinating access to the vaccine for our staff as supply increases and grocery workers qualify” in various states.

She was fired from a restaurant in the spring and is the primary breadwinner for three children and her husband, a freelancer who has struggled to find work in the pandemic. She earns $ 13.80 an hour, and she has no choice but to keep working in the store. She has a 13-year-old asthma and is worried that she will catch the virus at work and transmit it to her son.

“I’m scared every day when I go to work,” she said. “I get ready for my job. But it sometimes makes it very difficult for the customers.”

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