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Buckeye_Democrat

(14,858 posts)
Tue May 26, 2020, 07:39 AM May 2020

Meat processing companies are reluctant to disclose detailed case counts.

I'm not too surprised by the secrecy, since that's pretty common with corporations. They're mini-tyrannies, in my opinion, and aren't really subject to democratic forces like the government. (Which is surely why many right-wingers want to empower them more, and to reduce government power.)

Anyway, here's the article. I'll include much of the text.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html

The Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, N.C., is one of the world’s largest pork processing facilities, employing about 4,500 people and slaughtering roughly 30,000 pigs a day at its peak. And like more than 100 other meat plants across the United States, the facility has seen a substantial number of virus cases.

But the exact number is anyone’s guess.

Smithfield would not provide any data when asked about the number of illnesses at the plant. Neither would state or local health officials.

Along with nursing homes and prisons, meatpacking facilities have proven to be places where the virus spreads rapidly.

But as dozens of plants that closed because of outbreaks begin reopening, meat companies’ reluctance to disclose detailed case counts makes it difficult to determine whether the contagion is contained or new cases are emerging even with new safety measures in place, report Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany and Derek Kravitz.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were nearly 5,000 meatpacking workers infected with the virus at the end of last month. But the nonprofit group Food & Environment Reporting Network estimated last week that the number had climbed to more than 17,000, with 66 meatpacking deaths.

And the outbreaks may be even more extensive...

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Meat processing companies are reluctant to disclose detailed case counts. (Original Post) Buckeye_Democrat May 2020 OP
'reluctant' to disclose detailed case counts empedocles May 2020 #1
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