Essential workers slammed again as Omicron variant spreads

With the latest coronavirus wave upending another holiday season, frontline employees are feeling a disturbing sense of deja vu. The soaring number of U.S. infections linked to the Omicron variant has only deepened the crisis among essential workers, many of whom report being demoralized, abused, underpaid and exhausted as the pandemic trudges into its second year.

As 2021 comes to a close, workers in health care, transportation, retail, food services and other key sectors are again falling prey to COVID-19, leaving already diminished workforces to pick up the slack. The shortages are leading to hundreds of canceled flights, closed eateries and short-staffed retail stores. Above all, workers speak of a renewed sense of fatigue and frustration.

"We don't have enough hands. Everybody is working as much as they physically and mentally can," Judy Snarsky, a grocery worker in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press. "Some of us have been going like a freight train."