Coronavirus outbreaks at U.S. meatpacking plants continue
to soar as the beleaguered industry ramps up production, scales back
plant closures and tries to return to normal in the weeks after
President Donald Trump declared it an essential operation.
Trump’s April 28th executive order
followed the industry’s dire warnings of meat shortages and invoked the
Defense Production Act to compel slaughterhouses and processing plants
to remain open.
The order had a chilling
effect on the steady drumbeat of closures that had come to symbolize the
crisis throughout April and early May. Nearly three dozen
coronavirus-affected plants temporarily shuttered in the month leading
up to Trump’s executive order. In the five weeks since then, just 13
have closed, according to tracking from the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
Meat production, which had briefly tanked, quickly
rebounded after the order to near pre-coronavirus levels and quelled
consumer fears of pork, beef and poultry shortages.
But
the number of coronavirus cases tied to meatpacking plants has more
than doubled since then, topping 20,400 infections across 216 plants in
33 states, the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found.
At least 74 people have died.
That’s
despite widespread implementation of protective measures like
temperature checks, plastic barriers and social distancing meant to curb
the virus’ spread inside the plants. Some of the recent outbreaks
happened at facilities that had taken such steps.
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