The Iowa Department of Public Health gave false information about the number of coronavirus cases at a meatpacking plant in May, halving the number of confirmed cases when speaking to the public. The agency announced on May 5 that the Tyson Foods pork processing plant at Columbus Junction had 221 infected employees. But, Tyson’s managers had told state officials days earlier that 522 of the approximately 1,300 workers at the facility had tested positive, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press through an open records request. A dozen employees were already hospitalized and two were dead.
A spokesperson for the health department told the Associated Press: “Please note that we have just established a definition of an outbreak and we wanted to share the information we had available. Since that initial round of testing in April, the testing reporting process has improved significantly. “A Tyson spokesman said the cases announced on May 5 reflected only the first round of testing, but did not explain why the department would not have Using the data Tyson had provided, the coronavirus has been especially challenging for meatpacking plants, with severe outbreaks across the country at other processing facilities.
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