I also heard a rumor that a Tyson plant in West Branch has positive tests as well. And the plant in Columbus Junction announced late yesterday that 2 employees died from the virus.
Coronavirus Coronavirus: In-Iowa General Discussion (Not Limited)
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I also heard a rumor that a Tyson plant in West Branch has positive tests as well. And the plant in Columbus Junction announced late yesterday that 2 employees died from the virus.
Just a reminder that if you are in Iowa there is likely a customer focused beef/pork grower in your area who would be happy to work with a locker plant to supply you with a complete supply of cuts for a price similar to what you pay for hamburger at Hy-Vee.
Part of the future of food security needs to be allowing people to source locally, and getting serious about systems that allow them to do that safely.
That is so messed up. If only we had some sort of agency that could put out guidelines to stop things like this from happening.
Wow - moving workers from the infected plant to another plant without testing or isolating is gross negligence. That's really bad
Looks like Tyson wont be making any Top 10 list this year for best companies to work for.
Maybe I’m just missing it but what do people expect in these specific instances. We still need food. We are in a complete disaster if we ever get to the point where these places are shut down.
This doesn't help either, paying people to come in sick during a pandemic is just evil
from the plant in Sioux Falls:
The current strategy isn't working. Since they didn't do anything to keep their workers safe, plants are now shutting down completely because infections have gotten so bad. If they had taken steps immediately to protect their workers, these plants may have been able to continue to operate. Instead, they were given absolutely no guidance from anyone on what steps they could have taken to mitigate. Shutting down plants completely, as they're being forced to do now, is way worse.
They should have started staggering shifts, breaks and meals. They should have begun sanitizing common areas. The should have provided masks for all employees. They should have started running at lower capacities to limit the number of employees required to operate.
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Well, maybe quarantining or testing employees from a known infected hot spot before sending them to other facilities is a start. Beyond the gross negligence for public health, that's just bad business. You are just begging to have your plants shut down by doing this.
I don’t disagree that this was a bad idea but I still don’t think people will not be happy until everything gets shut down. The whining isn’t helpful IMO. Come up with actual suggestions like you did and you are adding to the discussion.
I don't know - Hospitals in Iowa still have tons of capacity, and unless there are a bunch more people dying than normal that aren't being attributed to Coronavirus, more testing isn't going to paint a worse picture. More testing would only show that potentially a hell of a lot more people have it that don't get hospitalized. In other words, the hospitalized and fatality numbers are what they are with only some possible slight changes due to some people in those categories not being attributed to COVID.
If anything, having limited testing makes it appear that a much higher percentage of people that get the virus are hospitalized and die. Now, broad testing will do wonders in helping us figure out more accurate actual mortality rates, more effectively isolate in a targeted way, understand the potential for reinfection, and understand the extent of additional peaks when things open up again.
The state government has disincentive to keep positive cases artificially low. They would have way more incentive to test as many as possible, hopefully showing a fairly high percentage of people have/or had it already and we still don't have very many people in the hospital because of it.
A bunch more people are dying that haven't been counted towards the Coronavirus death total because they couldn't be tested. New York just changed the way they count deaths because they weren't including those dying from suspected infection since they hadn't been tested. They are now going to include those in their numbers. Every state is counting differently and will continue to count differently until we have more widespread testing.
And there's people out there that think this is just fine which is almost worse.
I'd LOVE for the restrictions to be pulled starting tomorrow and for life to get back to being life but this is just one example of how much of a hornets' nest we're getting into.
I don't know about other states, but I really doubt that there are really high number of deaths in Iowa that aren't being attributed to COVID-19 that actually are due to the virus. I fully expect that there are some, but I am skeptical that the number is so high that it makes an appreciable change in how we assess the methods we've used to address the virus.
Anecdotal only, but I have a friend that is a PA in Omaha for 12 years and another that is an ER nurse at Mercy for over 15 years. Both have said this is literally the slowest the ERs have ever been in their careers. Also heard a story on the radio about rural area hospitals prepping, and they pretty much all said they are damn near empty. Obviously people staying in is keeping them from getting sick in other ways, and people don't go in for little things. Count me as being highly skeptical that there are "a bunch" of deaths in Iowa not being attributed to COVID-19. Of course there are going to be some, because they die without getting confirmed, but there is no evidence to suggest it is widespread.
It seems negative tests basically give us basically nothing useful because someone testing negative could have had it and possibly be able to work. That's where reliable antibody tests come in, so long as immunity is there.
Testing at workplaces somehow would be useful as you could maybe get a quick track of what was going on and reduce spread.
We definitely need to have these plants running. People think running low on tp is bad, wait until you start seeing meat supplies dwindle. That would be a sh!t show.
My comment was aimed more at what is happening nationally. The virus isn't widespread in Iowa yet so I also don't think there are many COVID deaths in Iowa not being counted. As far as methods used to address the virus, we need to implement some sort of guidance in regards to essential businesses that are still operating. The large outbreaks at packing plants in the state certainly need to be addressed.
You understand that is not a large scale solution if plants shut down. There are nowhere near enough lockers to process that much meat and a lot of people don't have the ability to store a half or whole frozen animal. There is a reason these enormous meat processing plants exist.
I've seen a few stories about people delivering produce to towns or neighborhoods, and also an old fashioned 'milk man' type of thing.
Are we possibly seeing some sort of swing back to that or is it just because people are at home so they can take the deliveries?
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