The Remote Pork Processor in the US USA Which has become the main focus of covid-19 in the country | Agribusiness

But how did a covid-19 outbreak become one of the least densely populated states in the US? USA In the world’s first largest economy?

On the afternoon of March 25, Julia opened her laptop and accessed a fake Facebook profile.

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She created this account when she was still in school, with the aim of secretly following in the footsteps of the boys she was in love with.

But this time, after many years, I was logging back in to fulfill a much more serious purpose.

“Can you investigate Smithfield?” He wrote in a profile called Argus911, the local whistleblowing channel on the local newspaper, Argus Leader.

“They have a positive case (of covid-19) and plan to stay open.”

By “Smithfield,” he meant the Smithfield Pork Processing Plant, located in the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It belongs to the Smithfield Foods group, based in Smithfield, Virginia, which is said to be the world’s largest producer of pork. In 2013, it was purchased by the Chinese group WH Group, in what was considered, and continues to be, the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese group.

The factory, a massive eight-story white structure located on the banks of the Big Sioux River, is the ninth-largest pork processor in the United States.

One of the largest employers in the city.

When operating at full capacity, the structure is capable of processing up to 19,500 freshly slaughtered pigs a day, cutting, grinding, and transforming them into millions of pounds of bacon, hot dog sausage, and sliced ​​ham.

With 3.7 thousand workers, it is also the fourth largest employer in the city, with 182 thousand inhabitants.

“Thanks for the report,” replied the Argus911 account, “what was the job of the employee who was positively diagnosed?”

“We are not sure,” replied Julia.

“Okay, thanks,” said Argus911. “We will contact you”.

At 7:35 a.m. the next day, Argus Leader posted an article on his website titled “A Smithfield Foods employee tests positive for coronavirus.”

The journalist confirmed with a company spokesperson that an employee had contracted the virus and was serving a 14-day quarantine at his home.

His work area and other common spaces have been “completely disinfected.”

But the factory, considered by the Trump administration as part of the American “critical industry”, would remain fully operational.

“Food is an essential part of our lives, and our more than 40,000 American workers, as well as thousands of small farmers and our many other supply chain partners are a crucial part of our nation’s response to covid-19” . Kenneth Sullivan, director of Smithfield, said in a video posted March 19 that justifies the decision to keep the factory open.

“We are taking the maximum precautions to guarantee the health and well-being of our employees and consumers,” he added.

However, Julia was alarmed.

‘My parents don’t know English. They can’t defend themselves’

“There are rumors that there were cases before that,” he said. “I heard about people in Smithfield, specifically, who were hospitalized. But that is only known by word of mouth.”

Julia does not work in the factory. She is a 20-year-old student, isolated at home after her university closed due to the covid-19 pandemic.

It was his parents, Smithfield employees, who told him what was happening at the factory that day.

Julia is part of a group called “Sons of Smithfield,” descendants of first-generation immigrants and whose parents are factory workers, who reported the outbreak.

“My parents don’t know English. They can’t defend themselves,” said Julia. “Someone has to speak for them.”

His family, like many in Sioux Falls, did everything possible to avoid contagion. Julia’s parents used all of their remaining vacations to stay home.

After work, they left his shoes outside and he showered immediately. Julia bought them cloth scarves, so they covered their mouths and noses as they worked.

For Julia, alerting the media was only a logical step in an attempt to keep them in good health, creating public pressure to close the factory and have her parents stay home.

The first approach in the United States

But that was just the beginning of nearly three weeks of anxiety, during which her parents continued to visit a factory they knew might be contaminated because they couldn’t lose their jobs.

There was no social distance. They worked less than a foot away from each other and their colleagues. Entering and leaving crowded changing rooms, hallways and cafes.

During that time, the number of confirmed cases among Smithfield employees slowly increased, from 80 to 190, and then to 238.

On April 15, when Smithfield finally closed under pressure from the South Dakota government, the factory had become the number one focus in the United States, with 644 confirmed cases among employees and people infected by them.

Smithfield infections were later found to account for 55% of confirmed cases in the state, far exceeding the most populous neighbors, if we consider the numbers per capita.

According to The New York Times, the number of cases originating from Smithfield Foods even exceeded those reported on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the aircraft carrier that had more than 600 infected crew members, and at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, where there were more than 300 cases.

These figures were released the day after the death of Smithfield’s first employee at a local hospital.

“He caught the virus there. Before, he was very healthy,” his wife Angelita told BBC News Mundo, the Spanish news service.

“My husband will not be the only one to die,” she added.

Microcosm of disparities

The Smithfield pork processing plant, located in a state led by one Republican and one of five that has not implemented any mandatory quarantine measures, has become a microcosm illustrating the socioeconomic disparities that the global pandemic has uncovered.

While many professionals across the country work from home, food industry employees, such as those at Smithfield, are considered “essential” and must remain at the forefront.

“The jobs of essential workers have below-average wages in the United States, in some cases with significant margins. This is the case, for example, of health assistants and supermarket checkouts, two absolutely essential positions along the lines of front, requiring physical presence. of workers, “explains Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institute, a US think tank.

Tomer notes that the majority of workers in these sectors are mostly African-American or Hispanic.

Smithfield’s workforce is primarily made up of immigrants and refugees from countries such as Myanmar, Ethiopia, Nepal, Congo and El Salvador.

There are 80 different languages ​​spoken in the factory. Salary estimates range, on average, from $ 14 to $ 16 an hour.

And the shift is long: It is exhausting work, requiring the employee to stay on a production line, usually less than 30 centimeters from their colleagues.

The BBC spoke to six former and current Smithfield employees, who said that although they were afraid to continue working, they had no choice between protecting their jobs or their health.

“I have a lot of bills to pay. My baby is coming, I have to work,” said a 25-year-old employee whose wife is eight months pregnant.

“If (the test) is positive, I am concerned that I will not be able to help my wife.”

The Smithfield case is not the only one

Food processing plants across the country face outbreaks of coronavirus with the potential to disrupt the supply chain.

A Brazilian JBS SA-owned meat factory in Colorado closed after five deaths and 103 infections among its employees.

Two workers at a Tyson Foods plant in Iowa in the northwest of the country also died, while 148 others fell ill.

The closure of a large meat processing facility, such as the one in Sioux Falls, causes a massive disturbance and leaves large numbers of farmers without a place to sell their animals.

Some 550 independent farms send their pigs for slaughter at the Sioux Falls factory.

In announcing the strike, the Smithfield director warned of “serious, perhaps disastrous repercussions” on meat supplies.

But according to factory officials, their union representatives and lawyers from the immigrant community in Sioux Falls, the outbreak that led to the factory closure would have been preventable.

They claim that initial requests for personal protective equipment were ignored, that sick workers were encouraged to continue working, and that information about the spread of the virus was stifled, even when they were at risk of exposing their families and individuals in general.

“If the federal government wants the company to remain open, then whose responsibility is it to ensure that these companies are doing what they have to do to keep them safe?” asks Nancy Reynoza, founder of Qué Pasa Sioux Falls, a Spanish news source that has received complaints from workers distressed by the situation in Smithfield.

The BBC asked Smithfield a series of questions based on the workers’ allegations, but the company said in a statement that it would not comment on individual cases.

“First, the health and safety of our employees and the community is our top priority every day,” the statement said.

“In February, we established a series of rigorous and detailed processes and protocols (…) following the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, a US government agency) to address any potential case of covid- 19 in our operations. ”

‘My parents are all I have’

The outbreak left people like Julia, whose mother has chronic health problems, overwhelmed by fear that her parents would risk their lives trying to keep their jobs.

“My parents are all I have. I have to think about the probability of not having them in my life,” he said, his voice cracking.

“I want to share what is happening to show what the company is not doing.”

Julia’s parents were expected to work on Tuesday, April 14, the last day before the 14-day closure announcement.

But on Saturday, Helen began to cough.

The next day, when snow fell in Sioux Falls, Julia insisted that her mother be tested. Helen tried to postpone it, saying it was nothing.

“My mother really hates going to the doctor,” said Julia, who finally won the argument.

Helen ended up going to a testing center at the local hospital. After the exam, they sent her home.

“If I have Covid-19, I clearly picked it up at the factory,” he said. “This week I worked on three different floors. I ate at two different coffee shops. Imagine all the places I’ve been to and played inside that factory. I walked everywhere,” he added.

On Tuesday, February 14, when they were scheduled to return to work, Julia’s parents woke up at 4 in the morning, as they usually do.

They called their bosses to explain that they couldn’t go to work while waiting for Helen’s test result.

The phone rang in the afternoon.

Julia spoke to the doctor on her mother’s cell phone, while her parents watched her face trying to interpret her reactions. When Julia heard the words “positive for covid-19,” she held up her thumbs.

Initially, the couple interpreted the gesture as if Helen did not have the virus. Julia tried to undo the misunderstanding.

His father immediately went to the kitchen, where Julia saw him trying to hold back his tears.

The same day Helen received her results, the controversy over the factory took on political colors.

Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken formally asked South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to issue an order to stay home for neighboring counties, as well as to create an isolation center.

She denied both requests.

Despite the increase in the number of cases, Noem also continued to refuse to issue a mandatory quarantine order in South Dakota, specifically saying that the order would not have stopped what happened in Smithfield.

Instead, it passed the first state test for hydroxychloroquine, a drug that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, often cites as a possible treatment for coronavirus.

Two days after her mother’s positive diagnosis of coronavirus, Julia woke up on the couch with a headache, cough, and dry throat.

For the first time since the pandemic took over her life, she slept through the night, but woke up more exhausted than ever.

After calling the emergency number and reporting that she was the daughter of a Smithfield worker, Julia got into her mother’s car and drove to the test site.

He was in a good mood, despite almost everything he had tried to avoid by sending the complaint to the local newspaper a month ago.

The factory remained open. Her mother had the virus and her father was exposed to the disease. His city had become the epicenter of the pandemic in South Dakota, and many had died.

And now, she could also be sick.

“I just want to cry,” she said, as she headed to the hospital.

Many immigrants in the United States are in the same situation as Julia’s parents. “They don’t know English. They can’t defend themselves,” says the young woman.

‘Go home, stay home, don’t go anywhere’

Although she arrived just 20 minutes after the test center opened, Julia found a row of 15 cars in front of her. “I hate lines,” he said, taking a sip from his water bottle and coughing.

After half an hour, he pulled into what looked like a huge garage and saw a sign saying, “Have your ID card and health insurance handy.”

“Okay, I was waiting for you,” he said. “I do not want to do that”.

When it was her turn, a center employee wearing a full protective suit, mask, and gloves stuffed a long cotton swab into Julia’s right nostril and then into her left.

She grimaced and shuddered.

“Do you need a scarf?” Asked the healthcare professional. “Yes please,” replied Julia.

With instructions to “go home, stay home, go nowhere,” Julia managed to get out of the center. It was such a terrifying moment that she started crying and had to stop the car for a moment to calm down.

Julia was sitting behind the wheel, watching the cars go in and out of the parking lot. And he regretted that his home had become a possible new source of infection.

After a few minutes, it was time to go home that her parents, Helen and Juan, had worked so many hours at the factory to pay. A place where everyone would be quarantined for at least 14 days.

“Now just wait,” said Julia. “I don’t think I can think about that much. But it will pass.”

Julia would receive her results in five days.