890 employees which represent the 40 percent of the workforce at a Tyson Foods pork-processing plant in Indiana have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The plant in Logansport stopped the operations last April 25, one of the several Tyson plants across the US that have voluntarily closed in an effort to help prevent the spread of the the lethal virus.
Serenity Alter, the Cass County health department’s administrator said nearly 900 employees at the plant have tested positive so far, and that a couple of hundred of others still need to be screened.
Hli Yang, a spokeswoman for Tyson Foods said the Logansport plant employs 2,200 workers. Yang declined to confirm the number who have tested positive for the virus.
“Since this is an ever-changing situation, we are not disclosing the number of confirmed cases associated with a plant,” she told NBC News.
Tyson Foods made the announcement in a joint statement with the city, county health department and local officials.
Yang said the company plans to resume limited production at the Logansport facility next week, following a plant tour with local health and government officials, a union representative and medical professionals.
“We’ve worked closely with Cass County officials, Cass County health department officials, the mayor of Logansport and the local union chapter on a reopening plan that we all believe will be safe for team members,” the spokesperson said.point 218 |
“During the plant tour, we showed them the additional protective measures implemented including more work station barriers, additional hand sanitizer dispensers, barriers in common areas to promote social distancing and more.point 201 |
”point 3 | 1
On Sunday, the chairman of Tyson Foods warned that the “U.S. food supply chain is breaking.”
“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain,” he said in a statement posted on the company’s website. “As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.”