Recebido do prof Eduardo Siqueira
Associate Professor of Environment and Public Health
School for the Environment
Coordinator of Transnational Brazilian Project
The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy
UMass Boston
OSHA Launches ‘Massive’ Health-Care Covid-19 Inspection Effort
· Deaths, hospitalizations trigger 70 inspections since March 15
· Advocates urge documenting complaints and compliance
By Bruce Rolfsen | April 28, 2020 6:32AM ET
Federal workplace safety inspectors are ramping up enforcement efforts at health-care facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic, data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration shows.
Deaths and multiple hospitalizations of health-care workers due to the coronavirus have prompted OSHA to begin at least 70 inspections from March 15 through April 23. OSHA opened another 15 health-care inspections based on worker complaints or other reports.
The inspections are in line with an OSHA directive April 13 that placed high priority on coronavirus-related inspections at medical facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes.
“What we’re seeing is a massive uptick in health-care inspections with fatality or catastrophe classifications,” said industry-side attorney Karen Tynan, of counsel in Ogletree Deakins P.C.’s Sacramento, Calif., office.
During the same period in 2019, OSHA opened four fatality or catastrophe-related inspections of health-care employers, agency inspection data shows.
43 Inspections in N.J., N.Y.
OSHA enforcement data showed New Jersey accounted for 27 of the inspections while there are 16 ongoing inspections in New York state.
Other states with multiple inspections include Illinois with 12; Florida with six; Texas with four; Alabama, Indiana, and Missouri with three each; and Ohio with two. States with one inspection were Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
The federal inspection numbers don’t include cases where OSHA hasn’t dispatched inspectors and is instead responding to complaints through telephone calls and written communications.
As of April 23, OSHA had received 2,609 coronavirus-related complaints, an agency spokeswoman said.
The OSHA numbers also don’t include states with their own workplace safety agencies that conduct inspections of privately owned hospitals and other health-care providers. States initiated 73 inspections of health-care employers, with 17 prompted by fatalities or hospitalizations.
Welcomed Inspections
The inspections are welcomed by worker advocates who’ve complained to OSHA about shortages of personal protective equipment and employers not following procedures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Debbie White, a nurse and president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, said that within 48 hours of the union filing a complaint with OSHA about PPE issues at a New Jersey hospital, the inspection was underway.
The complaint alleged a host of problems such as ill-fitting respirators that didn’t seem to meet federal standards for N95 respirators and no initial fit tests for workers who previously didn’t need to wear the face coverings.
“You don’t have a seal, you don’t have a fit, you don’t have protection,” White said.
White recommended that anyone who complains to OSHA should document the issues for the agency by including incident reports and worker statements.
From the employer side, Tynan said businesses also need to document their efforts to comply with OSHA rules and guidance.
While federal OSHA doesn’t have a rule specifically for the coronavirus, the agency does have requirements for PPE and training. And OSHA could use its general duty clause to cite employers who don’t mitigate known hazards.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health does have a rule for protecting workers from airborne transmissible diseases like Covid-19, Tynan said.
Meatpacking, Retail Inspections
The agency has also opened inspections at meatpacking plants with coronavirus infections. Since March 15, OSHA has initiated 10 inspections of the food processing facilities.
Five of the inspections are at plants with publicized virus outbreaks—Smithfield Foods Inc. in Kansas City, Mo.; National Beef Packing Co. in Liberal, Kan.; Tyson Foods Inc. in Dakota City, Neb.; JBS Green Bay Inc. in Green Bay, Wis.; and Cargill Meat Solutions in Marshall, Mo.
Largely free of inspections are retail stores—physical and on the internet. The only virus-related fatality OSHA listed in enforcement data are a pair of investigations at a Walmart Inc. store in Evergreen, Ill., where two men had worked and later died in early April from the virus.
Heidi Hansen
Public Policy Researcher
Health Professionals & Allied Employees, AFT/AFL-CIO
110 Kinderkamack Road
Emerson, NJ 07630
Phone:201-262-5005 x 148
Fax: 201-262-4335
Cell: 413-687-9683
Email: hhansen@hpae.org
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MAIS DE 500 CASOS em mesma empresa nos EUA.
MAIS DE 500 CASOS em mesma empresa nos EUA.
US meat plant closures spread after rash of virus cases
More than 500 employees at one Smithfield plant have tested positive for Covid-19
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One of the largest US pork producers is closing two more meat processing plants after one of its facilities in South Dakota became a hotspot of coronavirus infections, threatening to further strain a food supply chain already disrupted by the pandemic.
Smithfield had closed its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota — which the company said processes between 4 and 5 per cent all pork in the US and employs 3,700 — until further notice after 518 employees, and 126 people with whom they had come into contact, tested positive for coronavirus, according to state health officials.
Now, the US pork producer, which is owned by Hong-Kong based WHSmith, has said it would also close plants in Wisconsin and Missouri.
A Tyson meat packing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, has also shut its doors after nearly 200 employees tested positive for coronavirus.
Kenneth Sullivan, Smithfield chief executive, said the company was doing all it could to protect workers and maintain operations. “For the security of our nation, I cannot understate how critical it is for our industry to continue to operate unabated,” said Mr Sullivan.
“Our country is blessed with abundant livestock supplies, but our processing facilities are the bottleneck of our food chain,” he added. “Without plants like Sioux Falls running, other further processing facilities like Martin City [in Missouri] cannot function.”
Workers packing and processing meat in close quarters have made plants like those operated by Smithfield vulnerable to coronavirus infections. Yet there is immense pressure to keep essential parts of the food-supply chain, like meat processing plants, open during the crisis to alleviate fears of shortages and keep grocery stores stocked.
Editor’s note
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Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s governor, said at a press conference on Wednesday that she was working closely with Smithfield, Sonny Perdue, the US agriculture secretary, and Mike Pence, the US vice-president, to address the situation in Sioux Falls.
“They all recognise that this plant is incredibly important to the food supply in this country,” Ms Noem said. “This is a national security issue that this plant run.”
The Trump administration has moved to reassure Americans that outbreaks of coronavirus in meat processing plants would not pose a risk to the US supply chain, even as farmers grow increasingly worried about what it means for their output.
On Thursday morning, Mr Perdue said the food supply chain was “safe” and “resilient”, adding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was working with downed plants to get them operational again as soon as possible.
CDC officials were set to visit the Sioux Falls plant on Thursday to investigate the coronavirus outbreak and draw up a list of criteria for reopening the plant, according to South Dakota state officials.
“These food processing companies need to process the cattle and hogs that are grown in order for our grocery stores to have them, so it’s very critical for them to become operative and to stay operative,” Mr Perdue said.
“They, like all of us, have had workers who have been affected by coronavirus, and then they’re dealing with that along the CDC guidelines best they can,” he said.
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Farmers fear that the bottlenecks in plants will lead to culling of animals, as they contend with a drop in demand for meat from the closure of restaurants and hotels, even while consumers’ appetite for meat they can cook at home surges.
“We’re in complete havoc right now,” said Jen Sorenson, incoming president of the National Pork Producers Council. “The closure of packing plants across the country is putting pork producers in extreme peril.”
Ms Sorenson said euthanasia was the “devastating last resort” when barns became too overcrowded, but that many hog farmers were approaching that point.
Smithfield’s plant in Cudahy, Wisconsin, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will close for two weeks. Its plant in Martin City, Missouri, which employs over 400 people, smokes hams received from Smithfield’s closed Sioux Falls plant.
Smithfield said a “small number” of employees at both plants had tested positive for coronavirus. “Employees will be paid for the next two weeks during which time essential personnel will repeat the rigorous deep cleaning and sanitisation that have been ongoing at the facilities,” the company said.
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