"A handful of states and counties are creating Covid-19 testing mandates for agricultural workers after clusters of positive cases were linked to farms, labor camps and food-packing facilities across the country," Kate Queram
reports for
Route Fifty. "Agricultural workers have a higher risk of contracting covid-19 due to their lack of health insurance and living conditions, experts say, noting that many seasonal farmworkers, for example, will be housed together and travel to and from work in groups."
The Trump administration declared farm laborers "essential workers" but
didn't provide much guidance on how to keep them from getting sick or spreading the infection, leaving states and farmers to figure it out.
"As of mid-July, only eight states had established mandatory regulations to protect agricultural workers from Covid-19, while an additional 16 have issued testing recommendations but stopped short of official policies, according to the nonprofit," Queram reports. "Others have ramped up existing policies. For example, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee [recently]
updated a previous proclamation that requires agricultural employers to arrange free virus testing for their workers whenever there are more than nine cases among employees within a two-week period, or the 'virus attack rate' equals or exceeds 10% of the workforce."
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2EQmD8B Some states and counties mandate covid-19 testing for farmworkers -
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