While millions of Americans have been sheltering in place, FRONTLINE has been investigating the hidden toll of the pandemic of those who cannot stay home: Agricultural workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, who have been deemed essential to the nation’s food supply.
In COVID’s Hidden Toll, numerous farmworkers speak out about their experiences of having to choose between their health and their jobs – and what they say is a lack of protection from their companies. With Latino people nationwide dying from the coronavirus at a disproportionate rate, the film examines outbreaks at several growers and meat packing plants over the past several months, and how new evidence indicates that agricultural workers have faced a heightened risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Winner of the 2020 Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in National/International Investigative Reporting.
Nominated for the 2021 George Foster Peabody Award.
With its combination of hard-edged investigative reporting and empathetic storytelling, “COVID’s Hidden Toll” is a video call to the nation’s social conscience to think and care about the people who are risking their lives to keep the food supply flowing to supermarkets and our dining room tables. They are called “essential workers,” but they are hardly treated that way by most of the agricultural companies in California shown in this report. Journalists Daffodil Altan and Andrés Cediel have the wisdom to allow the workers interviewed in this documentary enough space to tell their stories in their own words. And that respect for the people in this film helps us see the world of these workers through their own eyes.
David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun
COVID’s Hidden Toll is a FRONTLINE production with Five O’Clock Films. The writers, producers and directors are Daffodil Altan & Andrés Cediel. Read more here.