Coronavirus Food News Tracker: Best articles on the pandemic and our food system

U.S. Right to Know is tracking important food-related news about the coronavirus pandemic in this post. Please sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly updates about our food system and breaking news from the U.S. Right to Know investigations,

Most recent articles

April 18, 2020 

• The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses, by Michael Corkery  and David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times (4.17.20)

April 17, 2020

• Coronavirus at Smithfield pork plant: The untold story of America’s biggest outbreak, by Jessica Lussenhop, BBC (4.17.20)
• ‘We may have to ration:’ US food banks face shortages as demand surges, by Nina Lakhani, Maanvi Singh, Erum Salam, The Guardian  (4.17.20)
• How toxic chemicals contribute to COVID-19 deaths, by Frederick vom Saal, Aly Cohen, Environmental Health News (4.17.20)

April 16, 2020

• Covid 19 and the elephant in the room: Obesity and chronic metabolic disease is killing COVID -19 patients, by Aseem Malhotra, European Scientist (4.16.20)
• Obesity Linked to Severe Coronavirus Disease, Especially for Younger Patients, by Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times (4.16.20)

April 15, 2020

• I Harvest Your Food. Why Isn’t My Health ‘Essential’? by Alma Patty Tzalain, New York Times (4.15.20)
• With Coronavirus, Food Workers Face Threats From All Sides, by Sarah Jones, New York Magazine (4.15.20)
• South Dakota Meat Plant Is Now Country’s Biggest Coronavirus Hot Spot, by Caitlin Dickerson, Miriam Jordan, New York Times (4.15.20)
• Coronavirus Cases at D.C. Whole Foods Highlight Risks Facing Grocery Workers, by Zach Montague, New York Times (4.15.20)
• What grocery workers say stores have done wrong amid COVID-19, by Will Carless, Patrick Michels, Reveal News (4.15.20)

Obesity and Coronavirus

• Covid 19 and the elephant in the room: Obesity and chronic metabolic disease is killing COVID -19 patients, by Aseem Malhotra, European Scientist (4.16.20)
• Obesity Linked to Severe Coronavirus Disease, Especially for Younger Patients, by Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times (4.16.20)
• Obesity and its Implications for COVID‐19 Mortality, by William Dietz, Carlos Santos‐Burgoa, Obesity journal (4.1.20)

Eating Ultra-processed Food Increases Likelihood of Dying from Coronavirus

• How Industrial Food Makes Us More Vulnerable to COVID-19, by Kristin Lawless, Heated (4.13.20)
• Reevaluate your nutrition strategy amid COVID-19, doctors say, by Anika Sinha, Stanford Daily (3.31.20)
• Mexico Official Calls Diet a Factor as Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs, Reuters (4.4.20)

Inequalities In Our Food System 

• How toxic chemicals contribute to COVID-19 deaths, by Frederick vom Saal, Aly Cohen, Environmental Health News (4.17.20)
• The Coronavirus Reveals The ‘Invisible Inequalities’ In Our Food System, by Tom Levitt, HuffPost (4.13.20)
• Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States, By John Eligon, Audra D. S. Burch, Dionne Searcey, Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times (4.7.20)

Risks Facing Farmworkers and Food Workers

• Coronavirus at Smithfield pork plant: The untold story of America’s biggest outbreak, by Jessica Lussenhop, BBC (4.17.20)
• I Harvest Your Food. Why Isn’t My Health ‘Essential’? by Alma Patty Tzalain, New York Times (4.15.20)
• With Coronavirus, Food Workers Face Threats From All Sides, by Sarah Jones, New York Magazine (4.15.20)
• Coronavirus Cases at D.C. Whole Foods Highlight Risks Facing Grocery Workers, by Zach Montague, New York Times (4.15.20)
• What grocery workers say stores have done wrong amid COVID-19, by Will Carlessand, Patrick Michels, Reveal News (4.15.20)
• Whole Foods staff protest against conditions as coronavirus cases rise, by Michael Sainato, The Guardian (4.15.20)
• Worries grow about health of employees in Iowa’s meatpacking plants, impact on food supply, by Barbara Rodriguez, Tommy Birch, Tyler Jett, Des Moines Register (4.14.20)
• As more grocery workers die, many supermarket employees fear showing up during pandemic, by Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post (4.12.20)
• Trump Moves to Slash Pay for Essential Migrant Farmworkers, Democracy Now! (4.13.20)
• Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus, by Abha Battarai, Washington Post (4.6.20)
• Farmworkers putting food on America’s tables are facing their own coronavirus crisis, by Catherine E. Soichet, CNN (4.4.20)
• Farmworkers are in the crosshairs of coronavirus, by Gosia Wozniacka, Civil Eats (3.25.20)

On the Role of Factory Farming and Agriculture in Pandemics Like Covid-19

• Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier, by Caitrin Einhorn, New York Times (4.9.20)
• It takes a whole world to create a new virus, not just China, by Laura Spinney, The Guardian (3/25/20)
• Destruction of Habitat and Loss of Biodiversity are Creating the Perfect Conditions for Diseases Like Covid-19 to Emerge, by John Vidal, ENSIA (3.17.20)
• We Made the Coronavirus Epidemic, by David Quammen, New York Times (1.28.20)

Toxic Chemicals and Coronavirus

• How toxic chemicals contribute to COVID-19 deaths, by Frederick vom Saal, Aly Cohen, Environmental Health News (4.17.20)

Food Supply and Security  

• The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses, by Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times (4.17.20)
• ‘We may have to ration’: US food banks face shortages as demand surges,by Nina Lakhani, Maanvi Singh, Erum Salam, The Guardian (4.17.20)
• US food supply is strained as virus spreads, by Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times (4.13.20)
• Dumped milk, smashed eggs, plowed vegetables: Food waste of the pandemic, by David Yaffe-Bellany, Michael Corkery, New York Times (4.11.20)
• As supermarkets feel hazardous and sparse, small farms deliver, by Tejal Rao, New York Times (4.3.20)
• The Effects of COVID-19 Will Ripple through Food Systems, by Laura Poppick, Scientific American (3.26.20)
• The coronavirus pandemic and future food security, by Patrick Holden, Environmental Health News (4.6.20)

Food Safety

• Answers to Common Questions About Coronavirus and the Food You Eat, Consumer Reports (4.1.20)

Junk Food Resurgence

• ‘I Just Need the Comfort’: Processed Foods Make a Pandemic Comeback, by Julie Creswel, New York Times (4.7.20)
• Processed food undergoing renaissance amid coronavirus: ‘We can’t make enough mac and cheese,’ by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Chicago Tribune (4.3.20)

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