Protecting the health of meat processing plant workers without jeopardizing the nation’s food supply chain is a challenge being faced by state officials. President Trump this week ordered meatpacking plants to stay open. At the same time, the Indiana State Department of Health is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak at the Tyson plant in Logansport.
During state officials’ COVID-19 briefing Wednesday, State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box said the goal is to keep plants open but not at the expense of employees’ health. “If you look at, even, Tyson, you know, 50 percent of the employees were positive up there, but another 50 percent were not,” Box noted. “And so with the social distancing and the barriers that they’ve put in and the deep cleaning that they’ve done and the requirement of masks and the screening of individuals, there’s no reason those individuals couldn’t come back, even if a plant is functioning at a lower level than what they were before.”
Governor Eric Holcomb noted that state health officials have tested all of the employees and are working to help plant officials make the necessary changes to keep them safe. He seemed to feel that the state’s approach was in line with the President’s directive. “Of course I agree with making sure that meatpacking supply chain is getting to market. We want to make sure that our groceries are stocked. We want to make sure that you can go and provide for your families,” Holcomb said. “Now having said that, we’ll be there. We’ve been testing there. We want to make sure the bottom line is – and the President did not contradict any of this – it’s done in a safe and timely fashion.”
Box said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reached out to her directly over the weekend about the importance of implementing the new CDC guidelines to keep the plants running. “Sometimes, we don’t realize when things close here that they were up to almost 25 percent of pork-producing factories were actually closing,” Box added.
Similarly, Governor Holcomb said he discussed the issue of keeping the supply chain running safely with Vice President Mike Pence and the U.S. and state secretaries of agriculture Wednesday afternoon.
