Saturday, October 23, 2021

The Forgotten Victims of Covid-19

As we emerge from the pandemic, there is a natural tendency to want to put this whole thing behind us and try and forget just how terrifying it was at its height. But we should never forget.

Especially the scandals we are only now learning about.

On Friday evening I listened to a special edition of the California Report called:

* 'There Is Anger. He Should Be Alive.' -- An Investigation Into Deadly COVID-19 Outbreaks at Foster Farms (KQED)

Foster Farms is a private company, one of the biggest employers in California's vast Central Valley, which in turn is one of the most productive food-producing regions in the world, responsible for over half of this country's fruits, vegetables and nuts.

And a whole lot of meat products as well.

Reporter Alexandra Hall overcame continuous attempts by Foster Farms to prevent her from learning the full extent of the Covid-19 outbreaks at its meat processing facilities, which killed at least 16 and sickened hundreds more.

At one point during her investigation, Hall was mistakenly copied on a company email instructing employees to continue to "ignore" her requests for information about the outbreaks.

The stakes are high for those who lost loved ones who contacted Covid at Foster Farms' plants. They may qualify for death benefits under the state's worker compensation system, but there's a one-year statute of limitations.

Many of the workers are from immigrant families with little knowledge of their rights under the law. For them the clock is ticking and time is running out...

You can read Alex's story here: <https://www.kqed.org/news/11892838/there-is-anger-he-should-be-alive-an-investigation-into-deadly-covid-19-outbreaks-at-foster-farms>

***

Later on Friday night, at a bowling alley in Pinole, I was transported back in time to my youth in Michigan.

There, employees in monogrammed shorts competed on their companies' bowling teams. There was a "men's night" and a "women's night."

By the time I was a teenager there was the equivalent of what you might call a "double date night," though I'm not sure I was entirely clear on the concept at the time.

Apart from the awkwardness of the situation for a shy, skinny kid in glasses, somehow I'd acquired the misleading information that the best way to impress girls was to let them win at bowling.

As dubious as that proposition was, my lack of skill at this particular sport made such an outcome inevitable anyway.

My high school bowling team sometimes let me compete, but I'm pretty sure that in that pre-automatic-scoring era, that was only because of my math ability.

I was the default scorekeeper.

THE HEADLINES:

* Facebook documents show how platform fueled rage ahead of Jan. 6 attack on Capitol -- Thousands of internal documents turned over to the SEC show what Facebook knew about the growth of the Stop the Steal movement on its platform in the weeks before a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol — and the anger that many employees felt at their company’s failure to stop the Jan. 6 violence. (WP)

* Biden Crafts a Climate Plan B: Tax Credits, Regulation and State Action -- The new strategy could deeply cut greenhouse gases that are heating the planet but it will still face considerable political, logistical and legal hurdles. (NYT)

* How Russia Is Cashing In on Climate Change -- Global warming may pose grave dangers around the world, but as one tiny Russian town on the Arctic Ocean shows, it can also be a ticket to prosperity. (NYT)

* Covid put music festivals on hold. Climate change might offer bigger long-term problems. (WP)

* Fire-scarred California braces for more storms, flash floods (AP)

* Prince Charles says "dangerously narrow window" to accelerate climate action (Reuters)

* They Are a Tribe of ‘Salmon People.’ Can They Pull Off One More Big Win? -- The Lummi Nation has a long, proud history of contesting ecologically unfriendly projects. Will it succeed against yet another threat? (NYT)