Every Kansas meatpacking worker who wants a vaccine will soon have one, governor says
Every Kansas meatpacking plant worker who wants to be vaccinated can be by the end of next week, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly announced Thursday.
Meatpacking workers are already included in the state’s current phase of vaccination eligibility. But the accelerated effort mirrors a similar drive to vaccinate K-12 school employees.
“We didn’t come in and prioritize anybody other than a generic category in phase two until we did the teachers,” Kelly said at a late afternoon briefing. “Meatpacking workers are right there too.”
Following an announcement last month, Kelly expected all K-12 staff members who wanted a vaccine to have one by the end of this week.
Kelly said she is using the same strategy to send counties extra vaccine doses earmarked for the roughly 10,000 meatpacking workers statewide.
She made the announcement alongside Agriculture Secretary Mike Beam, National Beef CEO Tim Klein, and community and union leaders who encouraged the largely Hispanic workforce to take advantage of the opportunity.
“These workers, these heroes rose to the occasion so that the rest of us could actually keep food on the table,” said Dodge City Commissioner Blanca Soto.
Kansas’ plants account for roughly 20% to 30% of the nation’s beef processing capacity.
Beam said the chance to vaccinate workers was something many in the state had “anxiously” waited for.
Since the summer, meatpacking plants have been a major source of COVID-19 outbreaks in the state.
According to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data, the industry’s 28 outbreaks have been responsible for 24 deaths, 120 hospitalizations and nearly 4,000 COVID-19 cases.
Lawsuits were filed against employers nationwide for failure to take sufficient action to prevent the spread of the virus.
In May, the state relaxed quarantine guidelines for meatpacking workers, allowing them to stay on the job after coming in contact with positive cases as long as they showed no symptoms. The change followed pressure from industry executives and an executive order from President Donald Trump directing meatpacking plants to stay open.
According to the KDHE 411,379 Kansans have been vaccinated thus far.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Kansas is 46th in the nation for vaccines distributed per capita. In a news conference on Wednesday, Kelly attributed the low ranking to ongoing technical issues which her office has launched efforts to fix.
“What we’re still working on and we’re working with the vendor ... we’ve got to make Web IZ our (vaccine tracking) system talk to Tiberius, the CDC system,” Kelly said.
Kelly’s administration has faced consistent criticism over its vaccine deployment efforts.
In a news release, Thursday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall said he was “deeply concerned” by Kansas’ vaccination rate and racial disparities in administration.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 5:41 PM.
