58 Percent of Workforce Test Positive For Coronavirus at Tyson Meat Factory in Iowa
The shocking stat is among many meat factories that have seen coronavirus spread through their workforces, as criticisms mount against the meat industry’s lack of employee safety.
Credit: Amy Jones/Moving Animals
A public health report has revealed that more than 700 employees at a single Tyson Foods meat factory have tested positive for coronavirus. The figure means that at least 58 per cent of the factory’s workforce in Perry, Iowa, have the virus.
In Indiana, another Tyson Foods plant was said to have nearly 900 workers test positive. Tyson Foods said in a statement seen by NBC that the pandemic has forced the company to slow production and close plants in Dakota City, Nebraska, and Pasco, Washington, along with the Perry plant in Iowa.
These shocking figures come after an already tumultuous few weeks for the meat industry. Industry leaders claimed that closures and sick workers were pushing the US meat supply “perilously close to the edge”, whilst President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order essentially forcing meat-processing plants and slaughterhouses to remain open amid the pandemic. Critics described Trump’s executive order as “marching meatpacking workers off to their deaths” with safety concerns mounting for worker’s lives.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is among those concerned for the safety of meatpackers, stating last week that “nursing homes and meatpacking plants are the most dangerous places there are right now”.
“They designate them as essential workers, then treat them as disposable. It’s quite frankly, inhumane and downright immoral,” Biden said of meatpackers.
Amid slaughterhouse closures and changing consumer trends, demand for plant-based protein has been soaring during the pandemic.
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