© Reuters/Shannon StapletonSmithfield, South Dakota processing plant
Processing facilities and health officials deep-cleaned, sanitized and placed plastic dividers between workstations to help prevent future coronavirus infections, said Sarah Little, vice president of communications for the North American Meat Institute. She told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the measures are similar to what plants were doing before they closed.
Processing plants are "implementing CDC/OSHA Guidelines. But they were doing that before the guidelines even came out," Little said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines plant owners were given after a rash of closings due to virus infections.
More than 238 Smithfield Foods employees at a plant in South Dakota, for instance, had active cases of the virus before the facility was temporarily closed. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem recommended in April that the company close its doors for two weeks after health officials began raising alarms. The plant in her state employs about 3,700 workers.
Tyson Foods, another major processor, also experienced a spat of infections at a plant in Iowa, forcing closures.
One-thousand thirty-one workers at the Waterloo, Iowa, plant, which employs 2,800 people, tested positive for coronavirus, or COVID-19, equaling 37% of the plant's workforce, according to state officials. The virus originated in central China before hopping across the world, killing more than 271,000 people internationally.
Comment: As we know, the origin of this strain of the virus was not in China and the numbers of covid victims are subject to differing medical methodology, unfactored pre-existing conditions and a variety of rules and methods to assign accountability.
Tyson Foods spokesman Gary Mickelson confirmed to the DCNF that the Iowa plant was back online as of Thursday.
The company is holding health screenings, assigning employees as social distance monitors and supplying facial coverings, spokesman Derek Burleson told Business Insider.
Even so, the country still has hemorrhaged about 38% of its total pork processing capacity, according to Steve Meyer, an economist at Kerns and Associates in Ames, Iowa. The lack of production prompted Costco, Hy-Vee and Walmart's Sam's Clubs to limit how much meat customers can purchase.
Workers in Waterloo will undergo a wellness screening before each shift, as well as repeated temperature checks and be required to wear face masks, Tyson Foods said. The company is also assigning so-called social distance monitors who will help maintain safety precautions, spokesman Derek Burleson told Business Insider.
President Donald Trump's executive order in April requiring a reliable food supply helped officials and plant owners work together, Little noted.
"It has allowed everyone more ability to work together to get the plants open whereas before, local officials were more inclined to recommend a plant close, full stop," Little added.
All of this came as the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union raised concerns about working conditions in the age of coronavirus, which prompted governors and mayors to impose economic lockdowns to slow the spread of the outbreak. Reopenings must be coupled with a serious ramp-up in safety measures, according to UFCW International president Marc Perrone, who said in an April 28 statement responding to Trump's order:
"America's meatpacking workers must be protected. The reality is that these workers are putting their lives on the line every day to keep our country fed during this deadly outbreak. For the sake of all our families, we must prioritize the safety and security of these workers."Other union officials said they are happy with how Tyson has responded. Bob Waters, president of UFCW Local 431, for instance, said he supports reopening the Tyson plant and said in a May 6 press statement:
"Tyson has gone above and beyond to keep their employees safe. This pork plant and all of the measures they've put in place are an example of how to effectively set up a safe work environment for the employees."UFCW did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's repeated requests for comment.
Reader Comments
I have never thought that working or living in crowded conditions was a good thing. It might be endurable or even to some, enticing in the short term, but I personally find crowding to be quite bad.
Please note: This not the same as recommending 'social distancing', which is Orwellian, of course. Also, I do acknowledge that what constitutes 'crowding' varies from individual to individual. But there comes a point, due to crowding, where everything begins to really smell bad, taste bad, feel bad, look bad and sound bad. You then begin to give up sensing entirely. You become a dullwit, having given up so much of what made you, you.
This happens to the animals you are eating, too. I feel very bad for them. They (factory farm animals) have all arrived 'at the mill', before you did.
Again: Very bad.
ned the farmer,
out
p.s. I still have some cows, though not very many. I never had very many, but now have even less. My wife loves her sheep and goats. There are far more humans in this rural area, now. They are starting to stink...
Too late. I drank it and now I feel like I'm growing a new body.
Hope that doesn't mean I'm gonna have to eat grass and chew cud from now on.
One of the interesting things about drinking raw unpasteurised milk is, if you get it from different farmers, you can more or less tell how happy the herd is. The milk has a certain "mood" to it. Pasteurised, homogenised supermarket milk has no mood to it all because it has for all intents and purposes been neutralised.
Similar with meat. If you get it straight from the butcher it is literally bursting with life. From what I understand, meat from the supermarket is often irradiated which is probably why it is invariably tasteless and lifeless.
As regards the "mood" angle, I guess that's what some vegetarian religious sects refer to when they talk about not wanting to pick up on "bad karma" from eating animals.