An influential report on protecting the medical supply chain in the next pandemic fails to include a commitment to protecting the workers who protect the supply chain. The securing strategy outlined by Richard Locke, Ben Armstrong, Samantha Schaab-Rozbicki, and Geordie Young offers examples of such an approach, and the analytical framework for protecting the chain-awareness, mitigation, preparedness, and response-can be applied equally well to the workforce. Considerations of equity and fairness should lead us to unchain the workers strung along the chain of medical and consumer supplies.