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Coronavirus

Supermarket workers – The other frontline workers

epa08311367 Customers wearing protective masks queue outside a supermarket during the Coronavirus emergency, Brescia, Italy, 21 March 2020. The number of deaths from the pandemic COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus in Italy has now surpassed the death toll for all of China, where the outbreak originated. According to the Civil Protection agency, the total number of confirmed infections has risen to more than 47,000, while over 4,000 people have lost their lives to the disease in the Mediterranean country. EPA-EFE/FILIPPO VENEZIA

European supermarket workers, have found themselves adjusting from a more functional role to a strategic one necessary for national survival as governments try to contain a disease that has infected tens of thousands across the Continent, which has become the new global epicentre.

POLITICO reports that grocery stores are among the only shops allowed to stay open in European countries that have gone under lockdown, aside from pharmacies, since they’re vital to feed the population amid uncertain times.

This new role for supermarket workers on the frontlines comes with many unfamiliar challenges and vulnerabilities.

POLITICO reports supermarket workers feel unprepared, unprotected and too overworked to deal with it. Now countries and those companies are scrambling to respond.

Read more on POLITICO

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