A plum processing plant where at least 358 workers tested positive for the coronavirus and eight died, was ordered by California health officials to close temporarily, officials said Thursday.
The Foster Farms plant in Livingston – in the heart of the Central Valley of California, about 115 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco – was told to close this week by the Merced County Department of Public Health.
“Due to the number of deaths and the need to quickly test both permanent and temporary staff at the Foster Farms Livingston Facility, the Merced County Health Officer has ordered the Foster Farms Poultry Processing Plant to close until the plant can safely reopen,” he said. health department said Thursday in a statement.
Later Thursday night, a Merced County spokesman told the Fresno Bee that the county granted a 48-hour stay on the order to “help facilitate logistics in connection with any necessary closure.” The spokesman, Mike North, said the stay was issued after a phone call with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for food security.
Phone calls and emails to Foster Farms, which is headquartered in Livingston, received no immediate response Friday morning.
The USDA also could not be reached immediately for comment Friday.
Merced County health officials did not immediately respond to phone calls and an email.
The Foster Farms plant in Livingston was open and operational on Friday, according to three employees who answered phones at the facility Friday morning.
Provincial health officials said in the statement that they had worked with the health department and the state’s attorney general to try to help the company “limit the impact of the closure,” but that no agreement was reached. could be achieved. “Temporarily closing down a food production facility is the last option available to get this outbreak under control,” the statement said.
The county’s public health officer, Dr. Salvador Sandoval, said a temporary closure was needed to bring the outbreak at the plant under control.
“In view of increasing deaths and uncontrolled COVID-19 cases, the decision was made to order the Livingston Plant within the Foster Farms Livingston Complex closed until acceptable safety measures are in place,” Sandoval said in the statement.
“Our mission is to protect the health of the public, not even in the face of difficult decisions. The closure of this plant is the only way to get the outbreak at Foster Farms under control quickly. Our heart goes out to the eight families who have lost a loved one, ‘he said.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra called the spread of the virus at the facility “alarming.”
“If we are to keep food on our tables during this pandemic, we must do a better job of protecting the essential workers who place it there,” Becerra said in the county statement. “No one can ignore the facts: it’s time to press the reset button on Foster Farms’ Livingston plant.”
The actual spread of the coronavirus at the plant is unclear because the 358 known cases were largely among employees who were chosen to test or who voluntarily submitted test results, the statement said.
The facility currently has the longest and longest lasting of 16 outbreaks of the virus in the province, the statement said.
The Foster Farms plant was first officially declared an outbreak on June 29, at which time health officials from the province conducted a “courtesy” of the plant and gave recommendations, such as conducting extensive testing of workers and the changing employee shortages, according to the statement.
The province’s health department continued to advise the plant in July on the need for widespread testing, particularly in two severely affected departments.
But a site visit to the facility in early August by county officials and state health officials found that the June 29 recommendations were not fully adopted, the county said in a statement.
Since then, “testing as required” by the health department has not been completed and “the spread of COVID-19 within the facility has not been contained and active outbreaks continue to exist, posing a major threat to Foster Farms employees and the surrounding community,” he said. the statement.
