USDA To Implement President Trump’s Executive Order On Meat and Poultry Processors
Release & Contact Info Statement Release No. 0234.20 Contact: USDA Press Email: press@oc.usda.gov
(Washington, D.C., April 28, 2020) - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue released the following statement after President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to keep meat and poultry processing facilities open during the COVID-19 national emergency.
“I thank President Trump for signing this executive order and recognizing the importance of keeping our food supply chain safe, secure, and plentiful. Our nation’s meat and poultry processing facilities play an integral role in the continuity of our food supply chain,” said Secretary Perdue. “Maintaining the health and safety of these heroic employees in order to ensure that these critical facilities can continue operating is paramount. I also want to thank the companies who are doing their best to keep their workforce safe as well as keeping our food supply sustained. USDA will continue to work with its partners across the federal government to ensure employee safety to maintain this essential industry.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor have put out guidance for plants to implement to help ensure employee safety to reopen plants or to continue to operate those still open. Under the Executive Order and the authority of the Defense Production Act, USDA will work with meat processing to affirm they will operate in accordance with the CDC and OSHA guidance, and then work with state and local officials to ensure that these plants are allowed to operate to produce the meat protein that Americans need. USDA will continue to work with the CDC, OSHA, FDA, and state and local officials to ensure that facilities implementing this guidance to keep employees safe can continue operating.
Additional information and details will be released soon.
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Air, Surface Environmental, and Personal Protective Equipment Contamination by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) From a Symptomatic Patient
Coronaviruses have been implicated in nosocomial outbreaks1 with environmental contamination as a route of transmission.2 Similarly, nosocomial transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been reported.3 However, the mode of transmission and extent of environmental contamination are unknown.
Methods | From January 24 to February 4, 2020, 3 patients at the dedicated SARS-CoV-2 outbreak center in Singapore in airborne infection isolation rooms (12 air exchanges per hour)with anterooms and bathrooms had surface environmental samples taken at 26 sites. Personal protective equipment (PPE) samples from study physicians exiting the patient rooms also were collected. Sterile premoistened swabs were used.
Air sampling was done on 2 days using SKC Universal pumps (with 37-mm filter cassettes and 0.3-μm polytetrafluoroethylene filters for 4 hours at 5 L/min) in the room and anteroom and a Sartorius MD8 microbiological sampler (with gelatin membrane filter for 15 minutes at 6 m3 /h) outside the room (eFigure in the Supplement).
Specific real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) targetingRNA-dependentRNApolymeraseand E genes4was used to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 (see detailed methods in the eAppendix in the Supplement). Cycle threshold values, ie, number of cycles required for the fluorescent signal tocross the threshold inRT-PCR,quantified viral load, with lower values indicating higher viral load.
Sampleswere collected on 5 days over a 2-week period. One patient’s room was sampled before routine cleaning and 2 patients’ rooms after routine cleaning. Twice-daily cleaning of high-touch areas was done using 5000 ppm of sodium dichloroisocyanurate. The floor was cleaned daily using 1000 ppm of sodium dichloroisocyanurate.
Clinical data (symptoms, day of illness, and RT-PCR results) and timing of cleaning were collected and correlated with sampling results. Percentage positivity was calculated for rooms with positive environmental swabs. Institutional review board approval and written informed consent were obtained as part of a larger multicenter study.
Results | Patient A’s room was sampled on days 4 and 10 of illness while the patient was still symptomatic, after routine cleaning. All samples were negative. Patient B was symptomatic on day 8 and asymptomatic on day 11 of illness; samples taken on these 2 days after routine cleaning were negative (Table 1).
Patient C, whose samples were collected before routine cleaning, had positive results, with 13 (87%) of 15 room sites (including air outlet fans) and 3 (60%) of 5 toilet sites (toilet bowl, sink, and door handle) returning positive results (Table 2). Anteroom and corridor samples were negative. Patient C had upper respiratory tract involvement with no pneumonia and had 2 positive stool samples for SARS-CoV-2 on RT-PCR despite not having diarrhea. Patient C had greater viral shedding, with a cycle threshold value of 25.69 in nasopharyngeal samples compared with 31.31 and 35.33 in patients A and B (Table 1).
Only 1 PPE swab, from the surface of a shoe front, was positive. All other PPE swabs were negative. All air samples were negative.
Discussion | There was extensive environmental contamination by 1 SARS-CoV-2 patient with mild upper respiratory tract involvement. Toilet bowl and sink samples were positive, suggesting that viral shedding in stool5 could be a potential route of transmission. Postcleaning samples were negative, suggesting that current decontamination measures are sufficient.
Air samples were negative despite the extent of environmental contamination. Swabs taken from the air exhaust outlets tested positive, suggesting that small virus-laden droplets may be displaced by airflows and deposited on equipment such as vents.ThepositivePPE samplewasunsurprising because shoe covers are not part of PPE recommendations. The risk of transmission from contaminated footwear is likely low, as evidenced by negative results in the anteroom and clean corridor.
This study has several limitations. First, viral culture was not done to demonstrate viability. Second, due to operational limitations during an outbreak, methodology was inconsistent and sample size was small. Third, the volume of air sampled represents only a small fraction of total volume, and air exchanges in the room would have diluted the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the air. Further studies are required to confirm these preliminary results.
Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene.
Coronavirus can survive long exposure to high temperature, a threat to lab staff around world: paper
The new coronavirus can survive long exposure to high temperatures, according to an experiment by a team of French scientists.
Professor Remi Charrel and colleagues at the Aix-Marseille University in southern France heated the virus that causes Covid-19 to 60 degrees Celsius (140 Fahrenheit) for an hour and found that some strains were still able to replicate.
The scientists had to bring the temperature to almost boiling point to kill the virus completely, according to their non-peer-reviewed paper released on bioRxiv.org on Saturday. The results have implications for the safety of lab technicians working with the virus.
"Immunity passports" in the context of COVID-19
Scientific Brief
24 April 2020
WHO has published guidance on adjusting public health and social measures for the next phase of the COVID-19 response.1 Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an “immunity passport” or “risk-free certificate” that would enable individuals to travel or to return to work assuming that they are protected against re-infection. There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.
The measurement of antibodies specific to COVID-19
The development of immunity to a pathogen through natural infection is a multi-step process that typically takes place over 1-2 weeks. The body responds to a viral infection immediately with a non-specific innate response in which macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells slow the progress of virus and may even prevent it from causing symptoms. This non-specific response is followed by an adaptive response where the body makes antibodies that specifically bind to the virus. These antibodies are proteins called immunoglobulins. The body also makes T-cells that recognize and eliminate other cells infected with the virus. This is called cellular immunity. This combined adaptive response may clear the virus from the body, and if the response is strong enough, may prevent progression to severe illness or re-infection by the same virus. This process is often measured by the presence of antibodies in blood.
WHO continues to review the evidence on antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection.2-17 Most of these studies show that people who have recovered from infection have antibodies to the virus. However, some of these people have very low levels of neutralizing antibodies in their blood,4 suggesting that cellular immunity may also be critical for recovery. As of 24 April 2020, no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans.
Laboratory tests that detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in people, including rapid immunodiagnostic tests, need further validation to determine their accuracy and reliability. Inaccurate immunodiagnostic tests may falsely categorize people in two ways. The first is that they may falsely label people who have been infected as negative, and the second is that people who have not been infected are falsely labelled as positive. Both errors have serious consequences and will affect control efforts. These tests also need to accurately distinguish between past infections from SARS-CoV-2 and those caused by the known set of six human coronaviruses. Four of these viruses cause the common cold and circulate widely. The remaining two are the viruses that cause Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. People infected by any one of these viruses may produce antibodies that cross-react with antibodies produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Many countries are now testing for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at the population level or in specific groups, such as health workers, close contacts of known cases, or within households.21 WHO supports these studies, as they are critical for understanding the extent of – and risk factors associated with – infection. These studies will provide data on the percentage of people with detectable COVID-19 antibodies, but most are not designed to determine whether those people are immune to secondary infections.
Other considerations
At this point in the pandemic, there is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an “immunity passport” or “risk-free certificate.” People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice. The use of such certificates may therefore increase the risks of continued transmission. As new evidence becomes available, WHO will update this scientific brief.
References
SNIP...SEE;
SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children
Of the 1391 children assessed and tested from January 28 through February 26, 2020, a total of 171 (12.3%) were confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2 infection. Demographic data and clinical features are summarized in Table 1. (Details of the laboratory and radiologic findings are provided in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org.) The median age of the infected children was 6.7 years. Fever was present in 41.5% of the children at any time during the illness. Other common signs and symptoms included cough and pharyngeal erythema. A total of 27 patients (15.8%) did not have any symptoms of infection or radiologic features of pneumonia. A total of 12 patients had radiologic features of pneumonia but did not have any symptoms of infection. During the course of hospitalization, 3 patients required intensive care support and invasive mechanical ventilation; all had coexisting conditions (hydronephrosis, leukemia [for which the patient was receiving maintenance chemotherapy], and intussusception). Lymphopenia (lymphocyte count, <1 .2="" 10-month-old="" 149="" 2020="" 21="" 4="" 6="" 8="" a="" admission.="" after="" and="" as="" been="" bilateral="" child="" common="" condition="" death.="" died="" discharged="" div="" failure="" finding="" from="" general="" ground-glass="" had="" have="" hospital.="" in="" intussusception="" liter="" march="" most="" multiorgan="" of="" one="" opacity="" patients="" per="" present="" radiologic="" stable="" the="" there="" total="" wards="" was="" weeks="" were="" with="">
Two COVID-19 infected children, aged 12 and 13, die in Belgium and UK
By Alasdair Sandford with AFP, AP • last updated: 01/04/2020
A health worker in the intensive care ward observes a COVID-19 patient at a hospital in Belgium, March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
A 12-year-old girl in Belgium and a 13-year old boy in the UK infected with the novel coronavirus have died, authorities said.
They are believed to be the youngest victims of the disease in their respective countries.
The 12-year-old girl's death was announced during the daily news conference given by Belgium's health service, at the end of its regular update on casualty figures and hospitalisations.
“It's an emotionally difficult moment because it involves a child, and it has also upset the medical and scientific community,” said spokesman Dr Emmanuel André, visibly upset.
"We are thinking of her family and friends. It's a very rare event, but one which devastates us."
Another spokesman added that the child had had a fever for three days and had tested positive for the coronavirus. No other details were given of the girl's background.
Until now the youngest person to die from the virus in Belgium was a 30-year-old female nurse, according to Belgian media.
Just a few hours later, London's King's College Hospital announced that a 13-year-old COVID-19 patient had also died.
"Sadly, a 13-year old boy who tested positive for COVID-19 has passed away, and our thoughts and condolences are with the family at this time," a Trust spokesperson said in a statement.
"The death has been referred to the Coroner," it added.
An appeal posted on the GoFunMe crowdfunding platform by Madinah College, named him as Ismail and said that he didn't have "any pre-existing health conditions.
"Sadly he died without any family members close by due to the highly infectious nature of COVID-19," it added.
Ismail is believed the be the youngest victim of the disease in the UK.
Last week French authorities said a 16-year-old girl had died at a children's hospital in Paris. The death of the teenager, identified as Julie A. and described as otherwise healthy, has provoked strong emotions in France.
Coronavirus in France: healthy 16 year-old dies of COVID-19
Deaths from COVID-19 among people so young are exceptional. Health authorities have said previously that serious cases of the illness -- although predominant in older and more vulnerable age groups -- can occur in adults of any age.
Last weekend the US state of Illinois announced the death of an infant under one year old who had tested positive for coronavirus. The cause of death was being investigated. Medical reports on cases in China have documented the death of a 10-month-old baby and a 14-year-old boy.
A recent US study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of 2,500 patients found no cases of deaths among people aged under 19. But it did find that people of all ages were liable to become seriously ill: more than a third of those hospitalised were aged between 20 and 54.
Coronavirus in Europe: Latest numbers on COVID-19 cases and deaths
The Belgian girl's death was included among the latest national figures released on Tuesday, confirming nearly 200 more deaths since the previous update. More than 700 people in the country have died from coronavirus since the outbreak began.
Hospitals in three regions have been particularly badly affected, the authorities say -- around Brussels, in Limburg in eastern Flanders, and in Hainaut in Wallonia to the west.
With 12,775 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, Belgium has the 10th highest number of infections among countries worldwide, according to data compiled by the US Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
State Reporting of Cases and Deaths Due to COVID-19 in Long-Term Care Facilities Priya Chidambaram Published: Apr 23, 2020
Our data collection effort finds that in the 23 states that publicly report death data as of April 23, 2020, there have been over 10,000 reported deaths due to COVID-19 in long-term care facilities (including residents and staff), representing 27% of deaths due to COVID-19 in those states.
Our data also finds that there have been over 50,000 reported cases, accounting for 11% of coronavirus cases in 29 states. In six states reporting data, deaths in long-term care facilities account for over 50% of all COVID-19 deaths (Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Utah; Table 2).
High case and death rates may be attributed to a number of factors, including high rates of testing within long-term care facilities and low rates of testing of the general public.
The total cases and deaths from reporting states accounts for just over half (53%) of all cases, and 81% of all deaths. Given that not all states are reporting data yet and the continual lag in testing, the counts of cases and deaths are an undercount of the true number of cases and deaths in long-term care facilities.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/long-term-care.html
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2020
Covid-19 Hydroxychloroquine Study finds no benefit, higher death rate, study of 368 patients, 97 patients who took drug had a 27.8% death rate compared to 11.4% death rate that did not take drug
Texas City, Texas, Galveston County
COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move
When Larry Edrozo got a phone call from his mother’s nursing home in Texas City telling him she was being treated for the novel coronavirus with an unproven pharmaceutical drug, he had two questions: why was she getting the drug if she had not been showing symptoms, and who gave consent?
Purging the elderly and their votes with Covid-19
reminds me of GOP Republican Sarah Palin's death panels she was talking about...tss
COVID-19 U.S.A. DEATHS a failure at the highest level, the president of the USA...IMO.
President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat
President Trump delivers a television national address on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on March 11.
President Trump delivers a television national address on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on March 11. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By
Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima
April 27, 2020 at 4:22 p.m. CDT
U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.
For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences.
But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified material...
SNIP...
President George W. Bush on Pandemic Flu in 2005
Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised
By DEB RIECHMANN
March 14, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health and national security experts shake their heads when President Donald Trump says the coronavirus “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world.”
They’ve been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticized the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.
CORONAVIRUS APR. 8, 2020
U.S. Intelligence Warned Trump of Coronavirus Threat as Early as November: Report
By Matt Stieb
We’ve removed our paywall from essential coronavirus news stories. Become a subscriber to support our journalists. Subscribe now.
One of the many, mutually exclusive excuses the Trump administration has provided for its profound delay in responding to the coronavirus is that they were fooled by reports of the outbreak coming out of China. “I will be very candid with you,” Mike Pence explained on CNN last week, “and say that in mid-January the CDC was still assessing that the risk of the coronavirus to the American people was low. … The reality is that we could’ve been better off if China had been more forthcoming.”
Pence, too, could have been more forthcoming about the information the administration was privy to, according to a new report from ABC News. According to two officials familiar with a report from the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence, the White House was aware of a contagion which is now known to be COVID-19 as early as November. According to ABC News, the report, made up of data intercepts and satellite imagery, determined that the coronavirus was a potential threat to U.S. troops in the region. “Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” a source told ABC News. “It was then briefed multiple times to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House.”
Though Defense Secretary Mark Esper told ABC News on Sunday that the National Security Council was not briefed about the matter in December, the ABC News report says that the administration was aware of its contents as early as Thanksgiving:
The NCMI report was made available widely to people authorized to access intelligence community alerts. Following the report’s release, other intelligence community bulletins began circulating through confidential channels across the government around Thanksgiving, the sources said. Those analyses said China’s leadership knew the epidemic was out of control even as it kept such crucial information from foreign governments and public health agencies.
“The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. “But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.”
SNIP...
Atkinson’s removal is part of a larger shakeup of the intelligence community under Trump, who has long been skeptical of intelligence officials and information. Atkinson is at least the seventh intelligence official to be fired, ousted or moved aside since last summer.
Below is a timeline of Trump’s commentary downplaying the threat.
Jan. 22: On whether he was worried about a pandemic: “No, we’re not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
Jan. 24: “It will all work out well.”
Trump reportedly dismissed January coronavirus warnings from Health Secretary Alex Azar as 'alarmist'
Tom Porter
Trump according to the Post was warned in a January intelligence briefing about the threat posed by the virus as well as by his health secretary, but in public statements for weeks continued to downplay the likely impact of the disease.
A Navy captain tries to save his sailors, and gets fired in the process
Navy secretary, in a transparent bid to appease President Trump, moves precipitously to relieve aircraft carrier captain of his command: Our view The Editorial Board USA TODAY
coroanvirus Smaller
Source: Adobe Stock
04.29.2020By Ryan McCarthy and Sam Danley
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Meatpoultry.com will be tracking the state of plant closures throughout the United States and Canada.
The map below will be updated as needed. If you know of a closure that should added or updated, please contact Ryan McCarthy (rmccarthy@sosland.com), MEAT+POULTRY.
April 29
President Donald Trump issued an executive order, citing the Defense Production Act of 1950, to keep meat processing plants open to hold off possible shortages of beef, pork, chicken and other meats.
Under the order, “the Department of Agriculture is directed to ensure America’s meat and poultry processors continue operations uninterrupted to the maximum extent possible.”
According to the executive order, meat and poultry processing plants are classified as “critical infrastructure.” Closing meat processing plants can quickly have an impact on the nation’s food supply chain, Trump said.
“To combat this crisis and ensure the adequate availability of food for the American people, it is vital that these processors are able to remain operating at this critical moment, while also taking steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their facilities.”
During a meeting at the White House on April 28, Trump said “there’s plenty of supply,” but that supply chains had hit a “roadblock.”
April 28 John Tyson, chairman of the board with Tyson Foods Inc., took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette over the weekend to express his concerns about the food supply chain during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“The food supply chain is breaking,” wrote John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods, adding that supply of the company’s products at grocery stores will be limited until facilities are back up and running. Shuttered plants will lead to millions of livestock slaughtered as farmers are unable to sell to meat processors, the ad said.
The US Department of Agriculture plans to buy $3 billion in fresh produce, dairy and meat from farmers to reduce waste and stabilize retail prices. The agency forecasted 2020 beef prices will climb 1% to 2%, poultry 1.5% and pork between 2% and 3%.
April 27
JBS USA announced the temporary closure of its beef production plant in Green Bay, Wis., following a coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
Hormel Foods Corp closed its two Jennie-O Turkey Store plants in Willmar, Minn.
Starting the week of April 27, Smithfield Foods Inc. will suspend operations at its Monmouth, Ill. and St. Charles, III.
April 24 Tyson Foods Inc. closed its beef plant in Pasco, Wash. The company, which previously shuttered pork plants in Indiana and Iowa this week, did not provide a timeline for reopening the facility.
Indiana Packers Corp. (IPC) announced on April 24, that it began winding down production at the pork plant and would close the facility for up to two weeks.
April 23 Conagra Brands Inc. suspended most operations at its Birds Eye frozen foods plant in Darien, Wis., through at least April 27.
Tyson Foods, Inc., closed its pork processing facility in Logansport, Ind. The facility has been running at limited production since April 20 and is expected to stop production on or before April 25.
Comfrey Prime Pork closed its pork plant in Windom, Minn., through the end of the week.
April 22 Tyson Foods, Inc. indefinitely suspended operations at its pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa.
JBS USA limited operations at its beef plant in Brooks, Alberta.
April 21 A Conagra Brands Inc. frozen meal facility in Marshall, Mo., will remain shuttered until at least April 27. The plant closed April 17.
JBS USA indefinitely closed its pork plant in Worthington, Minn., due to an outbreak of COVID-19 among workers.
Don Miguel Foods, LLC, a subsidiary of MegaMex Foods Corp., closed its Mexican prepared foods manufacturing plant in Dallas for two weeks.
April 20 Specialty meats processor Burgers’ Smokehouse closed its facility in California, Mo., through April 20 after three employees tested positive for COVID-19.
April 18
Hormel Foods Corp. closed its meat plant in Rochelle, Ill., for two weeks.
April 17 Specialty meats processor Burgers’ Smokehouse closed its facility in California, Mo., through April 20 after three employees tested positive for COVID-19.
April 16 Smithfield Foods Inc. shuttered two plants that process bacon and ham after previously closing a hog slaughterhouse in South Dakota. A bacon and sausage facility in Cudahy, Wis., closed for two weeks alongside a spiral and smoked ham plant in Martin City, Mo.
Officials at the Tyson Fresh Meats pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, confirmed the facility will remain closed indefinitely after 86 additional cases of COVID-19 were found to be related to an outbreak at the plant.
April 14 JBS USA temporarily shuttered a beef production facility in Greeley, Colo., through April 24 due to an outbreak of COVID-19 among employees and the surrounding community. The company shut its beef plant in Souderton, Pa., until April 16, after previously cutting production.
National Beef Packing Co., LLC, announced its plant in Tama, Iowa, will remain closed through April 20. The facility previously closed on April 6.
April 13 Smithfield Foods announced its pork production plant in Sioux Falls, SD, will close indefinitely
April 10 Smithfield Foods closed its pork plant in Sioux Falls, SD, on April 9 after more than 80 workers tested positive for COVID-19.
April 9 West Liberty Foods closed its turkey, beef, pork and chicken facility in West Liberty, Iowa. It will remain closed for three days.
April 8 Maple Leaf Foods, Inc. closed its poultry plant in Brampton, Ont.
April 7 Cargill closed its case-ready beef and pork facility in Hazleton, Pa. Tyson Foods Inc. suspended production at its pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa.
April 8 National Beef Packing Co., LLC, suspended cattle slaughter at its plant in Tama, Iowa,
April 2 Sanderson Farms cut poultry production at its plant in Moultrie, Ga., for four weeks after more than a dozen employees test positive for COVID-19.
March 31 JBS USA cut production at a beef facility in Souderton, Pa., on March 31.
https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/22993-covid-19-meat-plant-map
WHAT ABOUT THOSE POOR EMPLOYEES ???
***> However, plant management reported that there were approximately 40 different languages spoken by employees in the plant and that English, Spanish, Kunama, Swahili, Nepali, Tigrinya, Amharic, French, Oromo, and Vietnamese are the top 10 languages. We were also unable to obtain information about the workstations of confirmed positive cases.
Date: April 22, 2020
From: Michael Grant, CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Colin Basler, CDC National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Jesica Jacobs, CDC Laboratory Leadership Service Officer Erin Kennedy, CDC Center for Global Health John Osburn, South Dakota Department of Health Jonathan Steinberg, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Officer, South Dakota Department of Health Suzanne Tomasi, CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
To: Joshua Clayton, South Dakota Department of Health Copy: Russ Dokken, Smithfield Foods Scott Reed, Smithfield Foods Mark Wiggs, Smithfield Foods B.J. Motley, President, UFCW Local 304A Union
Subject: Strategies to reduce COVID-19 transmission at the Smithfield Foods Sioux Falls Pork Plant
Background
The South Dakota Department of Health requested an Epi Aid for assistance in developing strategies to help reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections among Smithfield Foods Sioux Falls pork processing plant employees. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for an Epi Aid on April 14, 2020. The CDC team included veterinary epidemiologists, an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, an industrial hygienist, and a Laboratory Leadership Service Officer. One component of this effort was to visit the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant to evaluate existing health and safety controls and provide recommendations for improvement. This memorandum provides observations and recommendations based on our visits to the plant on April 16 and 17, 2020 and conversations with plant management and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) local president. The recommendations in this memorandum are steps that Smithfield Foods may want to consider implementing to address the conditions we identified at the plant. These recommendations are discretionary and not required or mandated by CDC.
No harvesting or further production work were taking place in the plant while we were on site. The first case among employees was detected on March 24, 2020. Smithfield Foods announced that the process to halt production began on April 11, 2020. The plant informed us that all processing activities were Page 2 of 15 completed on April 14, 2020 and that the plant would be shut down indefinitely while Smithfield Foods continued extensive sanitation and modification efforts in the plant. The few employees we observed in the plant during our walkthroughs were performing maintenance and distribution center tasks. We toured the plant and observed workstations from the pens where the swine are delivered through the distribution center, where product is shipped out of the plant. We also observed the route that employees take from the parking lots through the symptom screening tents and into the facility. Additionally, we observed administrative areas, the occupational health clinic and quarantine room, and the common areas (e.g., break rooms, cafeterias, locker rooms) shared by employees.
Our team was unable to identify important demographic information about this workforce, limiting our ability to understand the diversity of the employees. However, plant management reported that there were approximately 40 different languages spoken by employees in the plant and that English, Spanish, Kunama, Swahili, Nepali, Tigrinya, Amharic, French, Oromo, and Vietnamese are the top 10 languages. We were also unable to obtain information about the workstations of confirmed positive cases. This type of information could provide a better understanding of what workplace factors may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among employees. Key demographic and workstation information was requested from the company to help answer some of these questions in the future. Additional recommendations and findings may be provided upon receipt of demographic and workstation information.
Observations and Discussion
Employee Screening
snip...
Business
USDA Inspector Reportedly Dies Amid Meat-Plant Viral Outbreaks
By Deena Shanker and Lydia Mulvany
April 23, 2020, 2:14 PM CDT
Agency reported death during a call, two participants say Another inspector died in March, a union official says
An inspector from the U.S. Department of Agriculture has died after apparently contracting Covid-19, according to information the federal agency provided Thursday during a phone call with consumer groups.
The USDA didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Two participants on the call corroborated that the death was disclosed on the call.
“If USDA had acted more quickly to ensure worker safety, they could have prevented the disease from spreading across the meat industry as it has,” says Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who was on the call. “Instead, we have massive shutdowns and worker deaths. All that delay and lack of action is going to make it much harder to bring these outbreaks under control.”
As meat processing plants become hotbeds of virus outbreaks, inspectors are finding themselves at higher risk and increasingly getting sick themselves. There are about 6,500 inspectors across the country working for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. One hundred have tested positive for the virus.
Paula Schelling, the acting national joint council chairwoman of food-inspector locals for the American Federation of Government Employees, who wasn’t on the agency call, said she also heard of the death on Thursday. She said that the worker was in Chicago and his wife is now in intensive care. Another inspector died in New York in March, she said.
“It makes my heart sad,” she said.
USDA Modernizes Swine Slaughter Inspection for the First Time in Over 50 Years
Release & Contact Info Press Release Release No. 0139.19 Contact: USDA Press Email: press@oc.usda.gov
WASHINGTON, September 17, 2019 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a final rule to modernize swine slaughter inspection and bring it into the 21st century. For the first time in more than five decades, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is modernizing inspection at market hog slaughter establishments with a goal of protecting public health while allowing for food safety innovations.
“This regulatory change allows us to ensure food safety while eliminating outdated rules and allowing for companies to innovate,” Secretary Sonny Perdue said. “The final rule is the culmination of a science-based and data-driven rule making process which builds on the food safety improvements made in 1997, when USDA introduced a system of preventive controls for industry. With this rule, FSIS will finally begin full implementation of that program in swine establishments.”
Background: The final rule has new requirements for microbial testing that apply to all swine slaughterhouses to demonstrate that they are controlling for pathogens throughout the slaughter system. Additionally, FSIS is amending its meat inspection regulations to establish a new inspection system for market hog establishments called the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS).
In the final rule, FSIS amends the regulations to require all swine slaughter establishments to develop written sanitary dressing plans and implement microbial sampling to monitor process control for enteric pathogens that can cause foodborne illness. The final rule also allows market hog establishments to choose if they will operate under NSIS or continue to operate under traditional inspection.
FSIS will continue to conduct 100% inspection of animals before slaughter and 100% carcass-by-carcass inspection, as mandated by Congress. FSIS inspectors will also retain the authority to stop or slow the line as necessary to ensure that food safety and inspection are achieved. Under the NSIS, FSIS offline inspectors will conduct more food safety and humane handling verification tasks to protect the food supply and animal welfare.
To view the final rule, visit the FSIS website at: go.usa.gov/xVPVK
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The new rule will end limits on how fast slaughterhouses can kill pigs. It will also shift responsibility for removing defective meat during the slaughtering process from government inspectors to plant workers. The USDA will still inspect live pigs and the final pork products.
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CDC
Last updated April 24, 2020
Why Forecasting COVID-19 Deaths in the US is Critical
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Working to Bring Together Forecasts for COVID-19 Deaths in the US
CDC works with partners to bring together weekly forecasts for COVID-19 deaths in one place. These forecasts have been developed independently and shared publicly. It is important to bring these forecasts together to help understand how they compare with each other and how much uncertainty there is about what may happen in the upcoming four weeks.
Columbia Universityexternal icon
Model names: CU 20% contact reduction, CU 30% contact reduction, CU 40% contact reduction
Intervention assumptions These models are based on assumptions of reducing the number of contacts per case. Three different adaptive scenarios of contact reduction are projected: 20%, 30%, and 40% contact reduction in US counties with at least 10 cases. Additional reductions are implemented with additional new cases, and all social distancing interventions remain in place until the end of the projection.
Methods Metapopulation SEIR model
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluationexternal icon
Model name: IHME
Intervention assumptions This model assumes social distancing stays in place until the pandemic, in its current phase, reaches the point when COVID-19 deaths are less than 0.3 per million people. Based on these latest projections, IHME expects social distancing measures to be in place through the end of May.
Methods Non-linear mixed effects curve-fitting
Los Alamos National Laboratory (state-level forecasts only)external icon
Model name: LANL
Intervention assumptions Currently implemented interventions and the corresponding reductions in transmission will continue to be upheld in the future, resulting in an overall decrease in the growth rate of COVID-19. Over the course of the forecast, the model assumes that the growth will decrease over time. Methods Statistical dynamical growth model accounting for population susceptibility
Northeasternexternal icon
Model name: MOBS (Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological + Socio-technical Systems)
Intervention assumptions The projections assume that social distancing policies in place at the date of calibration are extended for the future weeks. Methods Metapopulation, age-structured SLIR model
University of Texas, Austinexternal icon
Model name: UT Austin
Intervention assumptions Estimates the extent of social distancing using geolocation data from mobile phones and assumes that the extent of social distancing does not change during the period of forecasting. The model is designed to predict confirmed COVID-19 deaths resulting from only a single wave of transmission.
Methods Statistical mixed-effects model.
University of Geneva (one-week ahead forecasts only)external icon
Model name: University of Geneva
Intervention assumptions The projections assume that social distancing policies in place at the date of calibration are extended for the future weeks. Methods Exponential and linear statistical models fit to the recent growth rate of cumulative deaths.
Youyang Gu (COVID-Projections)external icon
Model name: YYG
Intervention assumptions The projections assume that strong social distancing policies will remain in place through the projected period. Methods SEIS mechanistic model.
STATE BY STATE UPDATED DEATH PROJECTIONS (SEE TEXAS)
see Texas, and pray that it's not one of your Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, or any other family members or friends, oh, that's right, it's o.k. to die, the economy is more important..GOP MAGA COVID-19
COVID-19 Last updated: April 29, 2020, 15:15 GMT
United States
Coronavirus Cases: 1,038,490
Deaths: 59,438
Recovered: 143,117
USA State Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths New Deaths Active Cases Tot Cases/ 1M pop Deaths/ 1M pop Total Tests Tests/ 1M pop
Texas 26,171 690 14,311 939 25 300,384 10,772
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