Nearly 900 workers at Tyson pork plant in Indiana test positive for COVID-19 and more than 120 cases are confirmed at Missouri’s Triumph Foods beef factory as outbreaks stoke fears of meat shortages

Friday, May 1, 2020
By Paul Martin

Almost half of the employees at the Tyson Food plant in Logansport, Indiana have now tested positive for COVID-19
Meanwhile 126 workers at the Triumph Foods beef plant in St Joseph, Missouri have now tested positive for coronavirus
Cases add to what has already become a mounting meat crisis across the US as dozens have been forced to close or reduce production due to outbreaks
So far around 20 meat plant workers have died and another 6,500 have fallen ill from coronavirus
The temporary closures across the country has stoked global fears of a meat shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic as farmers are forced to cull livestock
President Trump took executive action this week when he ordered meat plants to stay open amid concerns over the impact on the nation’s food supply
It immediately drew backlash from unions that said the White House was jeopardizing lives and that at-risk workers required more protection

By EMILY CRANE
DAILYMAIL.COM
1 May 2020

Nearly 900 workers at a Tyson Foods pork plant in Indiana have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 120 cases have been reported at Triumph Foods beef factory in Missouri.

The latest tally of infections add to what has already become a mounting meat crisis across the United States as dozens of processing plants have closed or reduce production due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

So far, about 20 meat plant workers have died of coronavirus during the pandemic and a further 6,500 have fallen ill.

Almost half of the employees at the Tyson Food plant in Logansport, Indiana have now tested positive for COVID-19.

The pork processing plant has been shut for 14 days in a bid to curb the spread after employees started testing positive. The virus has so far infected 890 of the 2,200 workers at the plant in less than a week.

Meanwhile 126 workers at the Triumph Foods beef plant in St Joseph, Missouri have now tested positive for coronavirus.

The local health department started testing all of the more than 2,200 workers at the plant after 92 asymptomatic employees tested positive. A further 32 employees who were experiencing symptoms have now tested positive and they are waiting for results for 1,500 others.

That Missouri beef plant still remains open amid the outbreak.

Cases at a JBS beef facility in Greeley, Colorado have doubled from 120 to 245 in just three days after it reopened this week following a two-week shutdown after an outbreak. A sixth employee at the facility has now died, according to a union official.

Some of the largest slaughterhouses and processing plants across the United States have been forced to close in recent weeks due to outbreaks among workers.

Others plants have slowed production as workers have fallen ill or stayed home to avoid getting sick.

The temporary closures across the country has stoked global fears of a meat shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic as farmers are forced to cull livestock because they’re running short of space to house animals.

John H. Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods, said this week that the food supply chain was ‘breaking’ and warned of the potential for meat shortages as a growing number of plant closures have left farmers with fewer options to market and process livestock.

‘There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed,’ he said.

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