US regulatory system failed to prevent thousands of deaths in frontline workers during the pandemic, analysis finds

An evaluation printed within the British Medical Journal examines the dangers confronted by frontline staff in the USA throughout the pandemic and suggests reforms that would shield inhabitants well being and save lives. The piece is the primary of a sequence of articles on US classes realized throughout the pandemic.

Lead writer Professor David Michaels on the George Washington College and his colleagues notice that from the onset legal guidelines and laws in the USA inadequately protected frontline staff. The gaps allowed a fast unfold of illness in US workplaces like meat packing vegetation. On the identical time, these important staff have been hardly ever seen as a inhabitants that wanted particular consideration or protections.

“The results of those failures have been appalling and led to tens of 1000’s of deaths in frontline staff,” stated Michaels, who’s a professor of environmental and occupational well being on the GW Milken Institute College of Public Well being.

“The chance of publicity was exacerbated by race- and labor-related financial inequality, leading to disproportionally extra of the nation’s Black and Hispanic staff being killed or sickened by the virus.” Michaels additionally served because the administrator for the US Occupational Security and Well being Administration from 2009 to 2017, the longest serving administrator within the company’s historical past.

Key findings from the evaluation:

• COVID-19 disproportionately affected staff who needed to go to work to maintain society functioning
• Low-wage Black and Hispanic staff who couldn’t make money working from home have been disproportionately affected
• Actions by US occupational and public well being businesses fell far in need of what was wanted to make workplaces secure throughout the pandemic
• Defending employee well being within the subsequent pandemic requires motion now for paid household and medical depart, higher social helps and higher office protections

The evaluation, US staff throughout the COVID-19 pandemic: uneven dangers, protections and predictable penalties, was authored by Michaels, Emily Spieler at Northeastern College College of Regulation and Gregory Wagner on the Harvard T. H. Chan College of Public Well being.