Nearly 900 workers at an Indiana Tyson Foods pork processing plant have tested positive for the coronavirus, a report said.
The meat processing facility in Logansport is one of several Tyson plants across the country that have voluntarily closed due to virus outbreaks.
County officials have been working with Tyson, the largest US meat supplier, to develop a reopening plan, according to WISH-TV.
The plan gained steam after President Trump on Tuesday invoked the Defense Production Act to mandate that meat plants stay open during the pandemic, the report said.
The Logansport plant employs 2,200 people — 890, or 40 percent, of whom have tested positive for the illness.
“We were in good shape for a couple weeks and then just within the couple weeks it kind of blew up,” Serenity Alter, the health department administrator of Cass County, where the Tyson plant is, told the network.
Alter said that because of its high number of coronavirus cases, stay-at-home orders in the county should remain in place, despite Gov. Eric Holcomb’s expected plan to gradually lift restrictions on a regional basis, the report said.
“With our numbers increasing the way they are, hopefully we will not be one of those regions just quite yet,” Alter said.
Tyson has also voluntarily idled its meat processing facilities in Waterloo and Perry, Iowa, and beef plants in Pasco, Washington, and Dakota City, Nebraska, while it completes cleaning of the facilities and workers there undergo screening.
With Post wires