About 20% of grocery store workers had Covid-19, and most didn't have symptoms, study found - CNN

These workers likely became a "significant transmission source" for Covid-19 without even knowing it because most in the study were asymptomatic.

The analysis, published Thursday in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, is the first to demonstrate the significant asymptomatic infection rate, exposure risks and psychological distress grocery workers have felt during the pandemic.

In the study, 20% of the 104 grocery workers tested at a store in Boston in May had positive nasal swab tests.

By comparison, an earlier study of Covid-19 infections among Dutch health care workers found the infection rate was about 10%.

Yang said he hopes this study prompts the government and store owners to provide better guidance, routine testing and protection for grocery store workers.

Three states offer free testing for these workers and four offer worker's compensation, according to UFCW, but none of the states provide the full first responder status to grocery workers, and rules are inconsistent from state-to-state.

"We spend a lot of time talking about healthcare workers, and they are important, but we're missing a lot of the pieces of the puzzle if we don't look at non-health care workers exposure," Yang said.