Who is ‘essential’? Food and Farm Workers Left in Limbo in Vaccine Priorities

The nation’s food workers, hit hard by Covid-19 infections throughout the crisis, are finding resistance in the race to get vaccinated.

The industry is clamoring to prioritize frontline food workers who kept Americans fed throughout the worst of the pandemic even as thousands of them fell sick and hundreds died. But limited doses and a haphazard patchwork of distribution plans are leading to fears that thousands more workers will get hit — potentially stymieing food production in the coming weeks and months.

After last year’s widespread failure by employers and government regulators to protect food and farm workers from the virus, labor advocates fear that millions could once again fall through the cracks. President-elect Joe Biden is pushing for a $20 billion national vaccine program, but the plan doesn’t specifically address the needs of food and ag workers.

The CDC’s guidelines designate meat processing, grocery store, and food and agriculture workers as “non-health care frontline essential workers,” part of the second tier of vaccine priority, or “Phase 1b.” But the federal government is giving states the authority to craft their own plans and timelines for distribution — some of which leave out agriculture workers altogether, while others are rapidly changing.

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