it's important to note that even though CDC and OSHA has now put out guidelines for meat processing plants they it just came out yesterday why did they wait so long I don't know but they did put out these guidelines as of yesterday and the guidelines are purely voluntary the Trump administration could make these CDC guidelines for meat processing plants it could make them mandatory the Department of Labor could just tell meat packing plants these guidelines are required you have to follow them but they're not doing that and so these are just a suggestion except interestingly in one plant in the in the whole country in Missouri a really innovative lawsuit was filed against Smithfield one of these big companies that runs these big plants filed by an anonymous long-term employee at that plant she's just identified in the legal filings as Jane Doe and Jane Doe in her lawsuit against Smithfield alleges that people at the plant she works at have been working while sick they've been working without protective equipment there's a whole host of alleged irresponsible behavior by the plant that this employee is suing to correct she is interestingly not suing for damages she is just suing to try to force the plant to make the plant safe for its employees in this case in Missouri again Smithfield is ongoing but the federal judge overseeing that case today did rule that henceforth the plant must comply with guidelines from the CDC and OSHA so so you see an OSHA took until yesterday to come up with guidelines for these plants the Trump administration says those guidelines are just a suggestion not mandatory for any other meatpacking plant in the country but in Missouri thanks to the order of one federal judge this Smithfield plant is mandated to follow those guidelines at at least one of their plants start somewhere and God bless you and keep you mrs.
Jane Doe thank you what you've done Smithfield is also the company that operates that huge plant in Sioux Falls South Dakota that has produced one of the largest kovat outbreaks anywhere in the country there's now over a thousand cases in Sioux Falls South Dakota associate without one plan they still don't have a statewide stay-at-home order in South Dakota there's also nearly a thousand Cove aide cases in Grand Island Nebraska Nebraska is another state where they don't have a statewide stay-at-home order in Grand Island Nebraska that outbreak too appears to have originated with a meatpacking plant in town a jbs beef plant that's the nucleus of what's becoming a pretty worrying outbreak in Nebraska as a state Nebraska had 2, 000 confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday last week as of yesterday as of Sunday they have over 3, 000 cases that's not a good projection but again no stay at home order in Nebraska and a major campaign donor to Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts is back on his idea that he is going to open up the gigantic Nebraska crossing mall on Interstate 80 just outside Omaha by the end of this week sure Nebraska just went from 2, 000 cases on Thursday to 3, 000 on Sunday and they've got a thousand cases plus in one pretty small city associated with a meatpacking plant that the governor wants to reopen why not get everybody breathing breathing in each other's faces as quickly as possible when Trump labor secretary Eugene Scalia decided that he would not make the health guidelines for meatpacking plants mandatory I don't know if he thought that might mean that these outbreaks would stay inside the plants and not turn into big outbreaks in the communities where those workers live but what we're seeing where we have big outbreaks in meat packaging plant meat processing plants all over the country is that they're turning into big community outbreaks in all of those places we're seeing that everywhere now for example there's a very worrying situation tonight in Logansport Indiana the county their Cass County Indiana this morning announced a new public health emergency in their County because of a really big spike in cases they're centered on a local Tyson meat processing plant I mean this is their total cases in Cass County Indiana over time this is not a that is not a good trendline this is the growth in cases in Cass County Indiana day by day again good not a good trendline they have closed that Tyson plant in Cass County Indiana but but today with with the case numbers in that one County topping a thousand the CEO of the local Logansport Memorial Hospital said quote our hospital is not equipped with enough staff or resources to care for numbers like this and so that county in Indiana has put in place a state a new state of emergency and a stricter stay at home order than what is in place statewide.
