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May 29, 2020

Iowa Tyson Foods Plant Halting Operations After 500+ Workers Test Positive for Coronavirus
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In Iowa, Tyson Foods says it will halt operations at its Storm Lake meat
processing plant after 555 employees - or more than 20% of the workforce
- tested positive for the coronavirus. Buena Vista County, where the
plant is located, has the highest per capita infection rate of COVID-19
in Iowa. In California, over 200 workers at eight Los Angeles-area meat
and food processing plants have tested positive for COVID-19. John
Grant, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which
represents the meatpackers, called on Smithfield Foods to close its
Farmer John plant near downtown L.A.

John Grant: "The outbreak is over 10% of the workforce, and it's
dangerous. And the problem with this is that it's invisible, insidious
and deadly. And so, what you do is, when a shark's in the water, you
pull everybody out of the water, and you make an assessment of what's
going on."



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