How Widespread Coronavirus Testing Helped Meatpacking Plants Halt Outbreaks
Thousands of meatpacking workers have been infected with the coronavirus. Some of their employers now are rolling out large-scale testing, and their experience may offer lessons for other businesses.
Back in April, the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, was a poster child for corporate failure to protect workers from the coronavirus. Dozens of plant employees every day were showing up in clinics with symptoms of COVID-19. Nafissa Cisse Egbuonye, the public health director for Black Hawk County, Iowa, where the plant is located, recalls telling plant managers: "There is a huge volume [of cases]. There is an outbreak!"
At the time, no one knew the scale of the outbreak. Cisse Egbuonye told Tyson's managers that they needed to test
