Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 5/8/20

The country’s top health official suggested to lawmakers at the end of April that meatpacking employees were more likely to catch the coronavirus based on their social interactions and group living situations than from exposure on the job, POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn and Laura Barrón-López reported Thursday.

Azar’s comments, made April 28 on a phone call with a bipartisan group of members, sparked outrage from labor unions that have been fighting for safer working conditions as thousands of meatpacking employees have tested positive and at least 20 have died from the virus. Many employees at closed plants will head back to work soon under Trump’s recent order to keep operations running to avoid a meat shortage at grocery stores.

The secretary proposed sending law enforcement to communities where many meatpacking workers live in congregate housing to better enforce social distancing rules, according to two of the lawmakers on the call.

HHS initially declined to comment on Azar’s remarks. But after the story published, spokesperson Michael Caputo said in a statement that "Secretary Azar simply made the point that many public health officials have made: in addition to the meat packing plants themselves, many workers at certain remote and rural meatpacking facilities have living conditions that involve multifamily and congregate living, which have been conducive to rapid spread of the disease." He also denied that Azar mentioned a role for law enforcement.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents thousands of meatpacking workers across the country, quickly jumped on Azar for his comments.

“America's meatpacking workers are putting their lives on the line every day to make sure our families have the food they need during this pandemic,” UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso said in a statement. “Secretary Azar is cowardly pointing the finger at sick workers and peddling the same thinly-veiled racism we have heard from far too many in positions of power.”