On Thursday, May 28th, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported the beef packer Long Prairie Packing, a division of American Foods Group, had 227 employees that had tested positive for COVID 19. The newspaper attributed the numbers to the Minnesota Department of Health.
The company had begun conducting tests a week earlier under the auspices of Lakewood Health System of Staples, according to Todd County Public Health. According to a Public Health press release, dated Thursday, May 22nd, testing had begun on May 21st and all Long Prairie Packing employees who tested positive would be asked to isolate themselves. People with symptoms who tested positive as well as people without symptoms who tested positive would be asked to Isolate themselves, the press release said.
As of Saturday May 30th Todd County had 313 confirmed positive Covid 19 tests. That makes Todd County the 14th highest Covid County in the state. Most of the other counties are counties with huge populations such as Anoka, Hennepin, Ramsey, and Stearns. That means Todd County has pretty close to the highest per capita Covid 19 rate in Minnesota.
Long Prairie Packing is now home to the state’s third-largest workplace cluster of COVID-19 diagnoses following the JBS pork facility in Worthington and Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing in Cold Spring, which respectively had 704 and 251 cases as of Thursday, according to the newspaper.
Long Prairie Packing had taken numerous safety measure including installing dividers between workers and taking their temperatures regularly, the Star Tribune reported.
American Foods has had to briefly close a Green Bay Wisconsin plant due to COVID. The Green Bay and Long Prairie COVID out breaks are a part of a wide spread out break at meat processors across America.
Note: These paragraphs were added after the paragraphs above were written:
Note: These paragraphs were added after the paragraphs above were written:
At least 20,000 meat packing workers across the country have tested positive for COVID 19 and seventy of those workers have died, according to Leah Douglas of The Food and Environment Reporting Network.
Most meat packing operations are located in rural communities like Long Prairie, Melrose, and Cold Spring. In ordinary times they are a blessing to our economies and, if Long Prairie Packing is the example, they are good corporate citizens.
But, an analysis done by The Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) shows that rural communities with meat packing facilities are taking a very hard hit during the time of COVID 19. According to their analysis, counties with meat packing facilities have 1,090 cases per 100,000 people. Rural counties without meat packing facilities have on average 209 cases per 100,000 people.
“Ten of the fourteen rural counties with the highest infection rates contain meatpacking plants with outbreaks,” Leah Douglas writes. “Of those ten counties, four of the outbreaks are located at Tyson Foods plants, two at National Beef plants, and one each at a Smithfield, Cargill, Seaboard Foods, and JBS plant. These companies are some of the biggest meat producers in the county. According to an analysis by FERN, Tyson Foods alone accounts for a third of all Covid-19 cases among meat packing workers nationally.”
Long Prairie Packing is not among the group above and neither are any plants owned by American Foods Group. But, even though Long Prairie Packing did everything it could to stop it, the virus has struck with a vengence.
Our small communities, along with the farmers that supply them, need the meat packers. But there is something about them that made them that makes the industry vulnerable and puts our communities at risk. For our own safety and economic well being we all need to come together and find out what that something is.
Tim
Central Minnesota Political
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