USDA Trying To Adjust To Coronavirus

The USDA and other federal agencies are making preparations to deal with the further spread of coronavirus, including allowing hundreds of thousands of staffers to telework.

“We’ve got over 100,000 people scattered around the country," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. "We had some requests for teleworking in Seattle, which we granted. We had some in a Forest Service [office] that was 50-miles away, with no outbreak, and we said, ‘just sit back and relax a little bit.’ But, we’ve issued guidance to our employees on the internal side, about just, first of all, all the basic kind of things about what to do.”  

Some agencies including the SEC, the Interior Department and NASA have either closed some offices or gone to telework; and some of those federal employees have even tested positive for coronavirus. Secretary Perdue said USDA is testing its telecommuting system to see if everyone is up to speed.

“Our IT person feels that they are. We want to check those out, to make sure if we have to utilize those; that’s internal operation, because, as you all know, we got a lot of people [that] depend on USDA on a daily basis, from farmers and ranchers to consumers, here…and we have to carry on the work.”

Of course, some employees, by the nature of their work, can’t work from home. So, the lingering question is, how USDA will protect them from the virus. 

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