COVID-19 hit at least 59,000 meat workers in pandemic's first year, report says

At least 59,000 meatpacking workers contracted the coronavirus in the first year of the pandemic as the virus rapidly spread in plants' cramped conditions, according to internal documents from five major meat conglomerates obtained by a U.S. House subcommittee investigating the coronavirus response.

The panel's findings offer greater detail on the virus' toll among a largely immigrant workforce that managers implored to keep showing up for work as much of the rest of the country shut down, often in massive plants that employ hundreds or thousands of people working elbow-to-elbow along fast-moving production lines.

At least 269 meatpacking workers at the five companies died from COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and Feb. 1 the following year, the panel reported last week.

The report by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis cites interviews with staff members of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration saying that leaders of the agency made "a political decision" in 2020 during the Trump administration not to issue a regulatory standard that would have required meatpacking companies to take specific steps to protect workers.

The committee staff cited examples of individual plants where infection rates soared as high as 54% of the workforce at JBS SA's facility in Hyrum, Utah, and 50% at Tyson Foods Inc.'s plant in Amarillo, Texas.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report issued in September pointed to the closer working conditions in meatpacking plants than other U.S. manufacturing facilities as a likely reason the industry became an early epicenter of the pandemic.

Tyson announced Tuesday that more than 96% of its active workforce is now vaccinated. In a deal with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the corporation required its U.S. team members to be fully inoculated by Nov. 1.

The subcommittee's coronavirus findings were based on internal documents from JBS, Tyson, Smithfield Foods Inc., Cargill Inc. and National Beef Inc.

Cargill said in a statement that the company worked to maintain safe and consistent operations and didn't hesitate to temporarily idle or reduce capacity at plants when necessary.