More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, according to analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.
Tyson Foods has installed plastic barriers between worker stations at its meat and poultry plants to protect against transmission of the coronavirus.A rash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meat packing plants across the nation is far more extensive than previously thought, according to an exclusive review of cases by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
But experts say there's little risk of a dwindling protein supply because, given the choice between worker safety and keeping meat on grocery shelves, the nation’s slaughterhouses will choose to produce food. Amplifying the danger is that, in many places, meat processing companies are largely on their own to ensure an outbreak doesn’t spread across their factory floors.
And it could lead to more infections, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said in a statement: “These waivers guarantee that workers are more crowded along a meatpacking line and more workers are put at risk of either catching or spreading the virus.” Companies say they are taking steps to keep workers safe from outbreaks as they continue to feed the nation.
A 50-year-old employee named John at Smithfield’s Sioux Fall plant told USA TODAY that there’s no way to stay six feet apart from coworkers on the production line, in the cafeteria or in the locker room. The employee asked to use only his first name for fear that speaking out would cost him his job.Is Smithfield pork processed in China? How many employees work at the Sioux Falls plant? Here's what you need to know.
The Worthington JBS is among the 153 meat processing plants that USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting identified as operating in counties with a high rate of coronavirus. Any rate above one infection per 1,000 people puts a county in the top 25% of U.S. counties reporting COVID-19 infection rates.
Despite this, experts say the meat industry has enough flexibility and redundancy to avoid mass shortages. Plant workers told investigators that “employers do not want the line to slow down even when the plant is understaffed,” the GAO report said, adding that industry officials disagreed. “According to representatives of a meat industry trade association, staffing is typically increased when line speed increases.”
. “Strike teams” of epidemiologists and infectious disease nurses will also trace those who contacted infected workers and other Iowans. Later, Reynolds added that 250 National Guard members had been activated and that their mission includes helping to keep meat-processing plants open. Georgia did not respond to an inquiry, while Arkansas and North Carolina said they had only issued guidance.
“Going forward, it will take a much larger team to aggressively trace the contacts of everyone who tests positive,” Haight Connor said, adding the health department is “working to structure contact tracing collaboratively between the state and counties.” Bocchini said the company took action on its own more than a month ago. Its facility in Morris County, where 8 of every 1,000 residents has tested positive for coronavirus, checks employee temperatures, sanitizes all surfaces and common areas, and provides copious hand sanitizer to employees, Bocchini said.He declined to say whether any employees had tested positive for COVID-19, citing personnel privacy.
“You can get things on paper,” Specht said, “but I don’t know where they get the manpower to enforce.”Union workers at four Pennsylvania meat packing plants stricken by coronavirus say the federal government has ignored their push for safer working conditions.
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