The devastation caused by Covid-19 has been felt across communities and the care sector, but perhaps nowhere quite so deeply as in care homes for the elderly. Recent data collated in five different European countries suggests that the mortality rate of those infected in care homes is as high as 42-57%. The effects of underfunding and privatisation are being laid bare.
However, meat workers are now facing a new and serious threat in the form of Covid-19. Internationally, the industry has become a hotspot for the virus, with rates of infection dwarfing those among the wider population. Clusters of infection have broken out in many factories, including more than a dozen in Ireland, North and South. A worker at Moy Park in Dungannon has tragically died as a result of the virus.
Officially, just under 100,000 healthcare workers have contracted Covid-19, with over a thousand deaths internationally. The reality is likely to be far worse, as the World Health Organisation have reported almost 25,000 cases of Covid-19 in healthcare workers in April 2020 alone.
By Summer Conneely Within the current Covid-19 crisis, there are important negotiations occurring among the world’s leaders on how to develop and distribute any potential drugs or vaccines, with Donald Trump adopting an “America first” approach, and the EU largely supporting a voluntary patent pool. A resolution in favour of […]
