Tyson meat plant in Iowa reports 700 workers test positive for coronavirus

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Perry, Iowa had reported 730 workers that tested positive for COVID-19.
• That’s about 58% of the plant’s total workforce, confirming that the meatpacking industry has been hit hard by the pandemic.
• The Iowa Department of Public Health also reported that more than 1,600 employees at four meatpacking factories across the state had been infected by the virus.

More than half of the workforce at a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Perry, Iowa, has tested positive for coronavirus, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported on Tuesday,  according to NBC affiliate WHO.

Recently, a Tyson Foods plant in Indiana has reported almost 900 workers who were infected by the virus.

In a statement, the company said that the pandemic has pushed the factory to slow production and shut down plants in Dakota City, Nebraska, and Pasco, Washington, and the Perry plant as well.

“We have and expect to continue to face slowdowns and temporary idling of production facilities from team member shortages or choices we make to ensure operational safety,” the statement said.

The board chairman of Tyson Foods, John Tyson, said in April that the food supply chain is breaking in a full-page advertisement published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Alarmingly, it’s not only Tyson Foods that suffers worker infections. Last month, a Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, closed following the death of its two workers and 783 others tested positive for coronavirus.

The impact of the pandemic on meat factory employees has caused alarming concerns about the food supply chain in the country and fears of a meat shortage.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, using the Defense Production Act, to oblige meat processing plants to remain open. He also said that he will provide liability protection.

“We have had some difficulty where they are having a liability where it’s really unfair to them,” the president said last week. “I fully understand that it’s not their fault.”

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voiced out his concerns on Monday for the workers at meatpacking plants. Biden said that those factories, along with nursing homes, have become “the most dangerous places there are right now.”

“They designate them as essential workers and then treat them as disposable,” the former VP said of the meatpacking workers.

Source: AOL